


A Simple Matter

by raa



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Regency, F/M, Politics, Polyjuice Potion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-26
Updated: 2019-09-26
Packaged: 2020-10-28 15:50:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 24,987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20781125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raa/pseuds/raa
Summary: The famed young wizard heroes of England survived Lord Voldemort's reign, so courtship in this time of easy peace, with its ritual assemblies, eccentric chaperones, and mannered social calls should be easy, right? Draco certainly thought so.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was written for the 10th round of dramione remix, a fest which “remixes” a couple from a different canon with dramione. To read on without spoilers, skip the next paragraph!
> 
> For curious souls: my "remix" couple is Kit/Cressy from Georgette Heyer's _False Colours_. In that delightful Regency-era novel, Kit Fancot returns home from abroad to find his older twin brother, Evelyn, missing. Even worse, his mother's debts have forced Evelyn to contract a marriage of convenience with his mother's goddaughter, Cressida Stavely, and her family have planned a dinner which Evelyn must attend! Kit successfully impersonates his twin for the single event, but his strategic retreat to the family estate, which he hopes will afford him time to look for his twin, proves futile when Cressy's grandmother insists that she and Cressy visit so that Cressy and her betrothed can become more acquainted.

Before Mr Neville Longbottom flung open the doors to Longbottom Hall for the start of the Fifth Wizarding Peace Anniversary Ball, few had set foot within that austere and aging town residence since his parents' tragic end nearly three decades earlier. Many a witch dame, recalling years of Augusta Longbottom's cutting remarks, had sat down to pen an elegant refusal upon receiving their family’s invitation, only, a mere half-hour later, to tie to their owl a carefully worded acceptance. For this, and the impressive stream of guests which poured from the carriages on the fateful night of the ball, Mr Longbottom had not his own famously jovial nature or his much-lauded series of lectures on magical variegation to thank but his dear friend, Mr Harry Potter, for even the most ignorant toad knew that Longbottom was close friends with The-Boy-Who-Lived, and many ambitious souls suspected that Mr Potter's abhorrence of functions of any sort, especially official ones, would pale before his esteem for his good friend.

It was with some trepidation, therefore, that Mr Draco Malfoy approached the Hall on that fine May evening. He was not, as might be assumed, attired in the dashing fashions popular among his set: his robes, though made of fine material, draped rather loosely over his person, and atop this he had layered a formless cape which fell heavily about him. Strolling up the boulevard long after the line had subsided, he gazed upon the building front, his figure illuminated in a long column of light which shone out the windows. There would be no going back, he knew, once he showed his face.

"There you are!" cried Neville Longbottom, throwing open the door and peering down. "You certainly kept us waiting. But, Harry, I knew you'd come!"

"So I have," replied Draco, resigning himself to his fate. He took the steps two at a time, and shrugged off his cape at the top. "To dance with Miss Patil and no other reason, of course!"

"Well! A better reason than satisfying an old friend. You'd best hurry. She's quite a good-looking girl, and you've arrived with not even two sets before supper! Malfoy's influence, shall we say?"

"Draco," said Draco, not without some pleasure, "would never be caught dead in"—he gestured—"this."

"Or so he likes to tell us," replied Longbottom, with a glint in his eyes. "But you don't really believe he lounges about in that ridiculous four-piece when he's at Trenton Place."

"'Course I do. I've seen him do so."

"I don't know what's worse! That he really does so, or your perfect equanimity about the matter."

"I told you, I'm not much for clothes."

"And don't I know it," rejoined Longbottom, with a wide smile. "Is Malfoy coming?"

"He wasn't feeling quite the bit."

"Off to the club for some quiet, I fancy. Now, really, Harry, all that in May? Give it here, yes, that too, off it goes, and stop hindering the doorway, you block!"

Mr Malfoy, freed of his cloak, gave his friend a sweeping bow and continued through the foyer into what looked an endless green expanse but was, upon examination, simply a large pavilion enhanced by the artful arrangement of many cleverly placed mirrors and plants. Despite more than a decade of friendship with Longbottom, he had never been invited to Longbottom Place, and he noticed his surprise rather ruefully, adding artistic talents to the long list of ways in which he had underestimated Neville Longbottom. Searching the room from one end to the other, he found, just behind one tendril of possibly the largest Devil’s Snare ever known to man, the small elf door Potter would likely use as an entrance, and cursing Potter’s habits, managed to squeeze first one shoulder then the other through.

Unfolding his person, he found before him yet another verdurous vision to match the dense jungle through which Longbottom had first sent his guests. This, instead, was the ballroom of a fevered flower dream. The chandeliers of the famed Longbottom ballroom hung with fuschias, through which the light of thousands of candles attained a pinkish-purple glow. Leafy green ivy ran down the walls and along the wainscots; fully flowered wisteria snaked along the bannisters and up the grand columns; and around tables laden with delicate swan cream puffs and pumpkin juice floated large white-tipped crimson dahlias.

Time had not yet dulled the desire for bright colours and even more brightly lit rooms that the definitive death of Voldemort at Harry Potter's hands had brought to wizarding England five years earlier. The imposition of registries, and, worse, the disappearances of some of their most trusted housestaff, beloved shopspersons, and other such indispensable Muggle-born souls as proved exceptions to the general rule of Muggle untrustworthiness, had proved again quite inconvenient for the wizarding_ ton _in those years. Though few powerful families had suffered grievously, they still celebrated the death of that wizard and his constant companions, the fearsome brothers Rodolphus and Rabastan Lestrange, and Rodolphus’s wife, Bellatrix, with fervency.

Mr Malfoy, for his part, had seldom been in a more lavish setting despite a life spent in luxury. It was unlike Neville Longbottom, he knew, to give in to fashions, but he may not have had much choice, with Ludovic Bagman—and therefore Dolores Umbridge—at the helm. It was in fact quite likely, he reflected with a grimace, that Longbottom had exerted himself quite strenuously to prevent the entire ballroom from being covered in a most garish shade of pink.

He was startled, as he surveyed his more immediate surroundings, to find himself surveyed in turn by three other pairs of eyes. He cursed his luck: there were few people he wished to avoid more than the demonically upbeat twins, Mr Fred and George Weasley, and their very clever sister, Miss Ginny Weasley.

They, seeing his expression, burst into laughter.

"We asked Neville for the elf door, you see," said Miss Weasley wryly, "being quite used to your habits."

"Indeed we did. How predictable you are," chortled her brother, all lanky, red-haired menace.

"Now look, Harry—" Mr Weasley slung his arm over Mr Malfoy's shoulders and he was led behind a column with a few great strides.

"Don't look. It's only the same people you'll see every week for the next hundred days!" counseled Miss Weasley.

“That you’ve seen every summer since your come out!” said the first twin.

"No, silly,” said the other twin. “I wanted him to look _here_.” He unfolded a crumpled piece of paper, and waved it carelessly about.

"Oh! _ Here._ Well why didn't you say so, Fred?" 

"So you could, Fred! Keep up, will you?"

"Fred! So considerate of you! I _ do _try."

"He's not Fred, you're Fred," said Mr Malfoy, to the twin on his right, more confidently than he really felt.

"So he speaks! All right, so do you want that damn delivery or not? Because, Harry—"

"—we've only so much room in that old ruin, and we've damn near filled the place up—"

"—junk, really, if you think about it, George—"

"—don't say that, George! All but voids our excellent, very compelling reasons!"

"Oh yes, _ not _junk at all, like George said! Really damn important stuff, Harry! Top-notch, first-rate stuff! So you must tell us—"

"—are you a man of your word, Harry Potter?"

Potter's large, loopy signature was visible at the bottom of the paper, but the rest of the scribbling was quite incomprehensible, and well did Mr and Mr Weasley know it.

"'Course I am, but I've lost the sample," said Mr Malfoy, after a moment, lying without compunction.

"Lost it! By golly, George, do you hear that?" exclaimed Mr Weasley.

"He's not George.”

"Right you are, Harry," agreed the other Mr Weasley. "I'm Fred, aren't I? Tell you what, we'll give you another one and you’ll tell us if you need the fifty thousand, won't you?"

"Fifty thousand! I did not!"

"Two hundred thousand, it was, yes, Fred?"

"No, Fred, three hundred thousand!"

"Gammon! One hundred thousand, maximum."

"Twenty-five, I think!”

"Yes, I think so.”

“So, five thousand, just as we agreed," said Mr and Mr Weasley in unison, grinning at each other, and then cocking one eyebrow up each, expectantly, at their increasingly horrified friend.

He was saved from making any response, however, by the sudden appearance of their younger brother.

"I'll say," said this brother, Ron Weasley, “this is your best idea yet. Hide behind a column for the span of the ball! You might as well not have come at all!"

"And that's our exit, Fred," muttered one twin.

“Oh, shut up!” said Ron hotly.

"Don't like to be caught with our siblings," said the other. "We come to these things to get away from them, don't we Fred?"

"Sure do, Fred."

“More to get away from Mum!” cried Ron.

“That, too,” agreed his brother.

"What about me?" interjected his sister.

"Forgot about you, so sorry, Ginny dear.”

"Comes of being shorter than the rest of us, you know."

"Well, go on, then," she gurgled, to her twin brothers, not in the least offended. "Wouldn't want you to be stuck with your sister at the ball. What would the witchmags say?"

"Indeed!" said one of these twins, much struck.

"We'll owl you," the other twin assured the non-Weasley standing among them, and, chuckling as one, Mr and Mr Weasley strolled off.

They were not alone long: their company was happily welcomed into a circle of elegant witches, for although the Weasleys were known to often be at lets, and they were neither of them first sons, their blood was good, and this, together with their rather impressive heroic feats during the war and their various inventions which the Aurors had already put to good use, meant that they were in rather high demand this season, at least with as yet unmarried damsels, if not their disapproving Mamas. Even those, however, had generally managed to sniff a good deal less since the end of the war.

Their good fortune was not, however, a boon to their sister, who had been obliged to fend off a good many suitors, many more than in those dark years when her family's close friendship with Harry Potter had stayed the approach of many a comfortable and relatively apolitical bachelor wizard. She watched this family friend now, with an assessing eye, and thought he looked rather more harried and hounded than usual, and more terrified of the crowd than wary of it, as was Harry's normal way.

"And what were they doing back here, Harry?" she enquired lightly. "Tell us the truth. Was it a sell?"

"Er—"

"I knew it! And for the Ministry!" she exclaimed. "It's an excellent idea, Harry, and I'm sure it'll make them much happier. And it's much better for me, of course."

"Oh?"

"Ginny don’t like suitors," supplied her remaining brother. "You'd think she'd be overjoyed, being a right proper girl and all, but instead she complains. Simply won't shut up."

"As though you would if you were the one they were sniffing after!" she exclaimed.

"There's no hope for it,” sighed Ron. “You'll simply have to become more of a hag, dear Ginny!"

She chortled. "Not if Fred and George succeed in their scheme. Mr Nott says he doesn't mind a blood traitor, but I’m certain the stench of Cit will send him running!"

"But you don't need any help scaring them away! One good set-down of yours would send any wizard packing!"

"Oh phoo! You don't know how thick-headed some of them are!"

"Enough of that,” said her brother. “Nothing you like better than giving an icy set-down! _ You _ , dear sister, will manage just fine. _ Harry's _the one we should worry about. Rita Skeeter’s down there, I only barely managed an escape."

"You could have brought Malfoy," observed Ginny to Harry, who looked, she thought, even less well than before. "He cuts a fine enough figure to make a distraction, and, what's better, people don't like to talk to you when you're near him."

"Couldn't."

"Cried off, did he? Can't blame him," rejoined Ron. "Blimey, Harry, couldn’t you have—been a little more—subtle? Mum got wind of your request three days ago, so I'm sure it's all about now. She even summoned me for a serious discussion about my own future prospects. Why she's so focused on my marriage when Fred and George are running about, I've little notion of.” He started when the gong ran out. “That’s for the set. I'll come with you. "

"Oh no, you don't!" cried Ginny, pulling Ron back. "Your presence, brother, is required to ward away the noxious Mr Zacharias Smith, and if my wand happens to slip out of my fingers and Bogey-Hex him again, Mum will have fits."

This stayed Ron, for Mrs Weasley's nerves had long since become the foremost concern in his life now the war was over. He reflected, as he waved his friend off with an unhappy shrug, that in war one must stand with one's brothers, but in love every man had ultimately to see his own success, even if the company of good friends brought needed reassurance. 

He was much mistaken in this regard, as it was his presence, more than the crowd's, that terrified the man dressed currently as Harry Potter. The run-in with the Weasleys had not, however, been entirely without benefits for Draco—for one, it had left him feeling rather emboldened. He had chanced, after all, to catch his reflection in one of the many mirrors set about the ballroom, and he felt he rather looked the part. What’s more, by keeping strategic silence, he had successfully fended off nearly the entire Weasley clan.

No sooner had he found his quarry standing next to her twin, than he realized, however, that he had been imperfectly coached: he had no idea which of them was the lady to whom he was supposed to have promised a waltz. In front of him were, of course, identical twins, renowned for the perfect, matching aspects of their features: large, dark, slightly accusatory eyes, which, framed against curling black ringlets, took on a lovely depth. For one agonizing moment, he thought himself lost; then he saw the expectant way one lady shifted her gaze between him and her sister, and barely repressing a sigh of relief, he bowed to her, and shook hands, exchanging greetings with a cool assurance he was far from feeling. He then turned towards her companion, smiling at her, and carrying the hand she extended to him to his lips.

Potter was not known for his gallantries, but he was not a practised flirt either, and the calculated effect of this kiss, was made at least upon the lady's sister, Parvati, who exclaimed, quite loudly, "How quaint!"

Startled, and far from gratified—for indeed he did not wish Potter to be seen as quaint—he looked up, involuntarily meeting Miss Patil's eyes. These were bright with curiosity, and he thought suddenly that he had been mistaken in supposing the twins so similar, for the amused twinkle in her eyes was quite taking indeed.[1]

Potter, with the practice of the hounded single wizard and war hero, had ordered his friend to arrive with only time enough for his set before supper. Thus after the waltz, Draco led Miss Patil directly to supper where Longbottom—blessed, cursed friend that he was—had obligingly seated the two of them beside each other. As the seat on his right was occupied by a stodgy old wizard who said loudly, as they sat down, “Isn’t it pleasant that dear Gellert’s been dead five years, son? I sleep much better now!” and then, fittingly, fell promptly asleep, Draco spent much of the first two courses in silence, observing Miss Patil's lively conversation with Mr Finch-Fletchley, a Muggle-born fellow who, he gathered, happened to know Miss Patil through his association with her good friend Hermione Granger. They talked in terms of easy familiarity of Finch-Fletchley’s second failed attempt at Ministry service, with yet another poor showing on his N.E.W.T.S. despite his top marks at Hogwarts; of Miss Patil's brother, Paul, who was to start his seventh year at Hogwarts soon; of the institution of Hogwarts itself, which she naturally had never been to, being a witch not a wizard; and of her attempts to emulate only the best aspects of Hogwarts in her work with Miss Granger to open a school for Muggle-born witches. 

She would, Draco rather thought, make Potter a good political wife if he ever cared to notice it, though he had little sense of what, if any, Potter had seen in Miss Patil. He had only made clear to Draco, in those last moments before donning his Invisibility Cloak and dashing out, that his affections, while not engaged, were not entirely unengaged, and further, that he had grave concerns for her safety.

Miss Patil was not unaware of the silence to her right, however, and she finished her conversation with winning ease, turning to him with a smile. “And how have you found life after the death of dear Gellert, Mr Potter?”

“Quite well! I sleep as a babe each night!”

“You are too polite, for in your place, I feel certain I would be too curious to let the poor man sleep in peace!”

“Not at all! I saved my rudeness for eavesdropping instead!”

“Did you?” she exclaimed. “And what did you overhear? Your penance must be to provide me with your ill-gained information!”

He acknowledged the hit with a smile. “Will you humor me instead and answer a question? Tell me more of your work at Marymount. You mean to teach there?" 

"Yes," she said, returning his smile with a dazzling one of her own. "I shall share Divination with Parvati."

"You must be very close.”

“Oh, we are! But the truth is, well, most Divination is _born_ not taught, and that places us in a rather difficult position. There’s naught to discourage more a student than placing before them a teacher who can perform the miraculous without explaining it! Parvati and I do not share talents, so we mean to trade, each to teach what we find more difficult." 

"Better yet, then, to assign a teacher who has no talent at all!"

"Oh, no! That wouldn't do! An instructor must show that there _is_ art to Divination. Otherwise their students would think it all a joke!" 

"Surely not! We wizards are a superstitious lot."

"But think of all that nonsense about—oh, the engravings on the teapot in which you brew the tea, for example! It's no wonder so few ever discover their true abilities with _that_ as an introduction! Better, I think, to have an instructor with some talent, to avoid turning the skeptical away."

"And here I always supposed that my issues with Divination ever stemmed from my own doubts! Our professor ever insisted that one could not truly See without believing, and I, faced with nothing more than white fog, could never bring myself to! But your prescription, Miss Patil, excuses my laziness! You see, he liked only prophecies which concerned his own magnificence!"

"But," she cried, “wasn't your professor Gilderoy Lockhart?"

"The very man! Yes, he who defeated the trolls at Stockton-on-Tees!"

"He must have demonstrated some ability!"

"Not by my count!"

"But his reputation!" she exclaimed. "I refuse to believe it!"

"Don't tell me you admire him! He's got no gift for anything at all!"

"But you told me that he was quite gifted at Charms and wandless magic!" 

"Ah, but I was thinking of Divination," he said, recovering the slip while wondering what Potter had once learned of Lockhart that he did not know. "I’ve a marked distaste for him, and I’m afraid I got carried away. I never liked knowing my fortune, and he did so like to tell it. I lasted two years, after which I gave it up entirely."

"Even knowing your prophecy?"

"Especially knowing that," he said firmly, for he knew well what Potter felt about prophecies. But he had perceived that speaking of Potter's past was dangerous, and he led the conversation back to safer grounds. "I seem to recall there have been some difficulties with the license..."

"Dear Merlin, yes! I'm beginning to think it may not come in time for us to open this year at all, which means we’ll have paid a full year of the lease for nothing! And there's also the matter of the Defence Against the Dark Arts position, which you know I think is of critical importance since Muggle-born witches are subject to—" But at this, Miss Patil suddenly stopped talking.

"Since Muggle-borns?" prompted Draco gently.

"I'm sure," said Miss Patil, "that you've heard it before from Hermione." 

"Her enthusiasm_ is _rather catching," he said, thinking of the last time he had seen Miss Granger, when she had been so consumed with her plans for Marymount that she had scarcely noticed his presence.

"Oh! Tremendously so, but..."

"It doesn't feel quite your own, even so," he guessed. Long experience following behind Potter had taught him this. "Suddenly you remember it's not yours, after all."

A tremor passed through Miss Patil's hand, and she swallowed. "Just so," she agreed quietly.

It was quite difficult to imagine that so beautiful and lively a girl could feel outshone by a friend, but he could think of no other reason for her sudden silence. "Which is why, of course," he said, after a moment, "so few of us at Hogwarts ever developed a talent for Divination, despite Professor Lockhart's great—er, enthusiasm.” He glanced up, and, finding an old schoolmate scrutinizing their exchange, added, “Isn't that so, Blaise?"

Mr Zabini, seated across Mr Finch-Fletchley, gave a rather acid laugh. "Speak for yourself. I rather enjoyed the class. All you had to do was tell Lockhart he was quite the stunner. Nothing easier. I did so for years—simply flattered his vanity. Draco and I used to copy each other's papers, replacing every compliment with another even more flowery one, and leaving the rest the same."

"Ah," said Draco quietly. "Did you?" 

"Oh, yes, quite a good time we had together, ‘fore you ever were his friend. But after he left, I made do. For my term paper seventh year, Potter, I told Lockhart that in fifty years he'd be even more famous than you, in light of his lasting and consistent contributions to the wellbeing of wizardkind. He gave me an _Outstanding_ Outstanding, and said I'd never been more acute."

"And you may yet be proven right!" exclaimed Draco.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [1] The three paragraphs culminating in this footnote contain a lot of almost direct quotes from Chapter IV of _False Colours_, when Kit meets Cressy for the first time.


	2. Chapter 2

Potter, as Draco might well have expected, had not seen fit to leave any instruction, nor any remarks on Draco's performance the night before. He had assured Draco that he would attend the ball—under his invisibility cloak—but insisted that Draco was, under no circumstances, to report him missing if he did not surface for several weeks after. That was Potter—a gifted wizard who regarded structure as anathema to his missions, which depended as much on his remarkable ability to turn any commonplace spell into one of impressive power as his extremely well-developed gut instincts, honed from a lifetime of avoiding assassination at Lord Voldemort's hands.

Draco had returned to Grimmauld Place quite exhausted the night before, charmed despite himself by Miss Patil, and he discovered, having scanned Potter’s home for any sign of a note with some care, that he was quite anxious at the lack of communication. Her safety, which Potter was seeing to, was as much in his mind as Potter's, for Potter was a trained Auror and, since the deaths of both Voldemort and Dumbledore, England's most powerful living wizard. But it was just the type of paltry thing Potter often put you up to; he had done so often during those terrible years of Voldemort's era, disappearing as he chose, often believing it kept his friends safe to do so, and owling as little as possible. That his methods had, in the end, saw them through to victory had confirmed to Potter that his own instincts served as a better guide than any number of Moody's admonitions or Shacklebolt's impeccably planned four-man operations.

Some—Ron Weasley among them—were always game for Potter's madness, but Draco, after a few outings in the early days when none but Potter had taken seriously his desire to make amends, had begged off, and had worked more sedately under Shacklebolt. So long as Potter did not deign to be _communicatif_, however, Draco was free to conduct himself as he saw fit. The first order of business was to request a leave from Scrimgeour. Potter, Draco knew, would never request a leave, but since Potter's actions regarding Miss Patil were already entirely out of character, and since, further, he had studiously avoided being publicly in love ever since his rather disastrous pursuit of Miss Chang, Draco rather thought that no one would question a leave request or his conscientious attendance to the lady in question, a notion which appealed to Draco because it provided an easy means of offering protection.

He was making his way through Knockturn Alley towards the Ministry when he spotted Miss Patil's good friend Miss Granger leaving the Ministry entrance with a large basket under one arm. She frowned for a while, examining a document in her other hand, and looked up, only to stop short at the sight of him.

She came towards him, but gave him a repressive look. "I've told you before, Harry, I can handle myself. And Harry, you can't wait for her. She doesn't like it."

"I wasn't," he protested. "What does she do there, again?"

"Harry!" she said, in a small voice. "You know I can't tell you."

"I can't help it!" exclaimed Draco. "It's my job to know things!"

"All right," she said, giving him a considering look, "it's probably best you know, in any case. But, you mustn't rush about in that obstinate way of yours. Padma's been getting letters. Worse than the usual. Threatening ones, on account of her research, you know the type."

"And you didn't tell me before?"

She returned his gaze evenly. "We can handle ourselves."

"How long have the letters been coming?"

"Hush!" she hissed, glancing suspiciously at the lumbering wizard who had started towards them from across the street, and then pulling them into the doorstep of an abandoned shop. "A few weeks."

"Why didn't you tell me before?

"Because I knew you'd react like this!" she exclaimed. "Not everything is a problem you must solve, Harry—some of us like to solve them ourselves! I'm only telling you because I thought you'd better know in light of—last night." A curious red graced her cheeks at this. 

"And why did you skip the ball?" he couldn't help asking, and immediately regretted his question.

"You'd better come and wait at our office, if you insist on hanging about." She gave a decisive nod and started off at a brisk pace. "You know I would have gone," she continued, as they wound through the tangle of streets deep into the heart of Knockturn Alley. “There's nothing I like better than the astonished looks from the pure-bloods when I dare to join the dances! But I've been so busy with the paperwork for Marymount, I clean forgot about it."

"You should have come," he said, feeling that Potter, ever steadfast, would have stonily insisted on such. "I should have made sure."

"I don't need a ball to have a good time! And since when have you cared so much, Harry? You never cared two figs what I did with Viktor!"

"I did, in fact! I was quite put out when he left you here and scampered back for that stupid session."

"When I told you explicitly you should be nothing of the sort! I shouldn't have liked Bulgaria, and I told him so!"

"Forgive me!" he said, quickly. "Not for our friends to take offense where we feel none!"

This brought laughter to Miss Granger's eyes. "Don't tell Ginny!" she laughed. “Or her brother Ron!”

"I wouldn't," he assured her. "I've little notion of seeing either! I haven't heard the end of  _ his _ remarks regarding my two waltzes!"

She sighed, suddenly serious. "I'm happy for you, Harry, but be careful, won't you? Be gentle. She's an artist at heart."

He examined her expression, but could see no sign of jesting. It was quite odd, for that assessment of Miss Patil did not match at all the impression Draco had formed, of a sharp and practical mind, who enjoyed a good verbal fence.

They had arrived at a dusty, unmarked building. Miss Granger withdrew from her sleeve a single long key. "Here we are," she announced, unlocking the door, and immediately shooed him up a dark staircase. "You truly have the most awful timing, Harry. Now you'll occupy Merlin knows how many hours of each day, and she'll be leaving it all to the rest of us. Couldn't you have waited until the school year for your courtship? That would, at least, bring us some good publicity."

"Or ruin your reputation."

"Not you," she pointed out. "No one would ever believe anything negative about you."

"They did once!"

"A reformed one," she laughed, "that Harry Potter!"

"I was truly wicked! You forget that I spent my entire fifth year lying about Voldemort's return!"

"Well," she retorted, "as you'd know if you ever listened to Madam Malkin as she did your robes—oh I know you don't Harry, for you wear them all wrong—it's the ones that were crooked in their youth that follow the straight road after!"

"My god!" he exclaimed. "My poor reputation! On two counts, no less!"

"I think you rather like your ill-fitting robes," she said in a decisive tone, swinging open the door to a small sitting room and striding through it to a small office in the corner. It was an office for an organized mind, the papers neatly sorted. She tucked the basket into an empty spot on a shelf that was just the right size, clearly it's customary resting place, and sat down at once at the large desk.

Draco, after a moment, seated himself on the divan, and opened the book that had been left there — _ Trials of Muggle-born Witches, Seventh Century _ .

An hour later, a doorbell chimed below, but Miss Granger seemed not to hear it, or the footsteps that came closer. Only when the door to the waiting room jiggled did she suddenly glance up at him and fly to her feet, throwing down her quill.

It was Miss Patil. "You wouldn't believe, Hermione—"

"We've got company!" exclaimed Miss Granger brightly. "Harry's here!"

"Oh!" replied Miss Patil, stopping short, her eyes landing on Draco. "I—I thank you for waiting. If you will, with my apologies, wait just one moment, I have need of Miss Granger!" She pulled her friend by the arm into a different office, and shut the door with a bang.

They re-emerged two minutes later, Miss Patil looking rather breathless. "Forgive me," she said, with a pretty smile. "My work... It leaves me, quite flustered."

Miss Granger, beside her, gave a strangled gurgle. "Go on," she said, speaking quite fast, and sounding unlike the businesslike tone she had used before.

"You'd better get a start on, Hermione," said Miss Patil with some emphasis that eluded Draco. She tucked her hand into Draco's offered arm. "Shall we?"

Thus began what was, in most ways, the beginning of what Draco could only deem as the most idyllic time in his life since his fifth year. His days consisted of escorting Miss Patil about town, taking her for drives, awaiting her at the Marymount offices after her mysterious appointments at the Ministry, and attending her at the Patil residence, which was as eccentric as rumored. 

The Patils had been famous Seers in their own time, first sought-after then reviled by Lord Voldemort, and when their deaths at his hands had left their three children orphaned, the twins, fourteen, had sought the familiar by hiring the infamous Sybil Trelawney, a Seer as gifted as she was mad, as their governess-chaperone. Paired with Draco's knowledge of Lockhart, meeting Seer Trelawney would have made a conclusive case of Seers as frauds had Draco not simultaneously become acquainted with Miss Patil. She was in every way an easy counter to that reputation—practical-minded, and knowledgeable to the extreme, not at all like any Seer Draco had ever met or read about. Her speech the night of the ball was, in fact, quite in keeping with the disdain she used to refer to most Divination practices, and she seemed even to regard her own work as not being precise and sensible enough.

She was not uncurious as to Potter’s life, but he did all that was in his power to deflect such curiosity—she would wish to hear Potter's answers from his own lips. He did not like to offer her so little, but he had no choice. She could not fail, he rather thought, to detect the difference when Potter inevitably returned, but he comforted himself that she would, no doubt, find Potter, honorable and brave as he was, a much more compelling companion.

It was thus occupied, deflecting her questions and mulling on this sentiment, that it took him several weeks before he realized that Miss Patil was, in fact, also quite tight-lipped. She would regale him with stories of Miss Trelawney's drastic prophecies, and any number of increasingly esoteric facts about Divination, but when he enquired of her happiness and wishes, she would demure.

It was an odd type of reservation, for a witch whose bosom friend had described as an artist at heart, and the one time he thought he had glimpsed that side to her—in an awkward conversation that ended at the Ministry entrance—she had said, before going in, "I don't like to have company before using my gift. Or after. I feel so open, vulnerable. Please, do not meet me here again. At the Marymount offices, if you must."

He could deduce no farther what use the Ministry put her to, but he could not like it. And further, he felt it was quite unwise for her walk unguarded, especially not in Knockturn Alley. It might be the only place Miss Granger could afford for the local offices of the school she wished to start for Muggle-born women, but it was no place for a witch of quality. This objection, however, had been cast aside with scorn, when he mentioned it to Miss Granger:

"I've told you before, Harry," Miss Granger had said, "it's my business. We're not catering to the same crowd; no overprotective Mamas here. Most Muggle-born witches come from families which know places like this!"

"And your investors?"

"Besides you, you mean?” she snorted. “They’re like to believe me delusional if I set up in Diagon Alley paying thrice the rent!"

Her staff chuckled at this, and began, to Draco's fascination, to discuss how intimidating they would have found nicer offices. 

Miss Belina Boot, whose brother, Terry Boot, Draco had known at school, had lived outside wizarding society until the year Terry returned from Hogwarts on his first holiday and insisted that she—and their many witch ancestors, who had passed magic down from mother to daughter—had been much misled: it was a better life, not a worse one, that awaited them in a world with magic. Following his example, she had entered into service in some small shops, and—aside from those few terrifying years of Voldemort’s era—she found life as essentially a Muggle-born—even if she was a half-blood by definition—to be isolating, but easier than her old services as a kitchen maid. Miss Diane Fount, too, had taken the warning she had received upon turning eleven rather seriously, and only chancing upon the entrance to Diagon Alley in her seventeenth year had changed her life's trajectory.

Verity, who preferred to go by only one name, merely remarked that her mama would have sold her to the icy witch who came, if that witch had been willing, and she had seized on the memory and gladly made her way away from the life she would have had staying with her mama. A good choice she had made too, no matter how snobby she found pure-blood wizards, or, indeed, most half-bloods!

Miss Parvati Patil, who had often heard comments as this but seldom considered them, recalled suddenly her sister’s suitor sitting quietly in the corner and threw Verity a quelling look at this, but he, as would befit a wizard who was good friends with Hermione, seemed to take no offense. “We certainly are that!" he agreed.

"In any case," said Parvati, hurriedly, "I've always supposed we might eventually serve half-bloods and even pure-bloods. Before Paul was at Hogwarts, I did not know how paltry our own education had been."

"But I’m sure Hermione made sure you improved!" cried Miss Boot.

"Oh, she did! And much more besides! But not every pure-blood witch can happen upon Hermione Granger in a library and convince her to be their companion!"

"Not every pure-blood witch would welcome her,” rejoined Verity presently. “Or fancies sending daughters to a school headed by the likes of us! And them Muggle-borns who would turn their nose at Knockturn Alley wouldn't like how their daughters be treated as Muggle-born witches, I venture!"

Mr Malfoy had observed this conversation with great interest, for each passing day had given him more enthusiasm for what he had previously considered Hermione Granger's pet project. Indeed, he had not understood, before his association with Miss Patil, how close to fruition Miss Granger's dream was and how far the reach might be if she succeeded. Nor had he, prior to the past few days, ever considered how crucial the matter would be to a Muggle-born witch, denied the benefit of parental instruction, were she to join wizarding society.

He had found that he liked the staff—almost all women—that had gathered to agitate for this cause dear to their hearts. They worked cheerfully, with little regard for him, which was a marked contrast from his reception in a great many places.

The staff were, in fact, too occupied to pay their visitor much mind. They were nearing, in theory, the culmination of three years of labor, during which they had raised capital, sought out and renovated a suitable location—the manor after which the school was now named—and found teachers for their school. But the final step—that of having their curriculum approved and their students duly tested and awarded O.W.L.S. and N.E.W.T.S. by the Ministry—had proved extremely difficult.

It was with this in mind that Miss Granger turned to her friend Harry one day as he waited in her office for Miss Patil, as had become his habit, and remarked, thinking he would be a well of sympathy, "If the O.W.L.S. really are so difficult, then surely there should be no objection to sitting our best students, in a few year's time?"

"Hm?"

She sighed. "Harry, don't you remember? The accreditation."

"Ah, I do remember,” came the response, quite even-keeled. “Refused you again, have they? But you must have expected it. They mean not to pass you, I think."

"But—surely—if they believe Marymount will not produce witches worthy of accreditation, nothing will be lost by testing us!"

"You misunderstand. The test means nothing on its own. Its value is its selectivity. Suppose your students sit for the exam, and they pass—"

"Of course they would pass!" she interjected indignantly.

"Of course. Do you think then the next year, the Ministry would send you the same examiners, the ones that had proven themselves fair and unbiased in this matter? No, indeed! They would send you new ones, who would fail all your students."

"But when I told you before that it felt purposeful, you said that was beyond the toads at the Ministry, Harry!"

"You could say that I've reconsidered."

"You reconsidered," she repeated.

"Yes, and—well, I think you should give it up."

"Give it up!” she cried, dismayed. “Harry, I know you think it's better Hogwarts take us—"

"Did I say such a pigheaded thing? Oh, I'm sure I did. Well, nevermind what I said. It isn't better, of course."

"What an about face you've done! You said it was a waste to send anyone to a place that wasn't Hogwarts, that it was the best education, and that you wouldn't want me to slave away just to produce something second-rate, if we could force the governors at Hogwarts to let the girls in!"

"Oh, I believe I said that! But I shouldn't have!"

"Oh, phoo!" she cried. "Of course I was hurt, but you needn’t mince words, Harry!"

"Why change,” he said, giving her a sharp smile she had never seen on his face before, “what seems to work?"

"But Hogwarts doesn't work!"

"Not for you, but not so for our proud Hogwarts fathers! They like it as it is! Suppose you convinced—beyond possibility, of course, but we shall imagine it!—the Ministry to allow not just witches, but Muggle-born witches at Hogwarts. Since we’re daydreaming, suppose Flitwick then kept an iron grip on his school—which he can't, mind you, seeing as he's half-goblin. Even with such suppositions, do you think you could force—oh, who shall we pick? Binns, perhaps? Yes, do you think you could force Binns  _ not _ to neglect the Muggle-born witches, even more than he, and all the other professors, neglected their Muggle-born brothers? And a devil of a time you’d have getting the Governors to agree Binns must go on account of that. All must be as it was, at Hogwarts, exactly in their day! The horror if Binns, that old ghost, should ever be relieved of his position, paltry teacher that he is. Your girls would be made to feel second-rate. It's no good trying to learn when you—feel that.”

She stared at him. "Is that—how you felt at Hogwarts? Second-rate?"

It was with this remark that Mr Malfoy found he had been angry enough to be reckless. Miss Granger's previous questions had not alarmed him—she was a careful thinker, he knew, who liked to follow each thought in step. But Potter—as much as he had sympathized with Weasley, or with Longbottom—had no true understanding of envy. Potter had been raised by and loved by his godfather; he had been the toast of the wizarding world all his life.

"It was your idea, you know," he said, as it occurred to him suddenly, a story Harry Potter had told him once about Hermione Granger. "Dumbledore's Army was your idea. You said we couldn't wait for Amycus Carrow to teach us, and that you, yourself, were in danger simply for exchanging letters with me. You remember that?"

"Yes" she said slowly, and her gaze, though on his face, became abstracted. "Did you I ever tell you the name was Ginny's idea? She'd suggested it when I first mentioned it to her. Isn't that like her?"

"Was it?" he said, and laughed at the thought of clever Miss Weasley suggesting they name themselves Dumbledore's Army. "But of course it was. There’s sense to it still, you know: the war never really ended, to their minds. But they can only obstruct you so long as you demand the things they can give—the accreditations, the examiners! Verity doesn’t need that—nor Miss Fount. They need a steady hand and the resources to practice."

"But they did need it," she said, looking at him quite seriously. "How many Muggle-borns have we lost because the witch who comes to their door on their eleventh birthday scares them away? I thought I was going mad—and quite a few Muggle-born witches have been committed, cursed by the magic we can’t control! Marymount  _ needs  _ to identify every witch born in England, Muggle-born or not, and the Ministry has promised us these only if we meet their requirements. So you see—"

"Why didn't Miss Patil come?" he asked, suddenly. “To our DA meetings.”

"Oh!" she said. "It was either them or me: we couldn't all escape Trelawney's droning on, but when she taught Divination, which I had no gift for, she was so occupied my time was my own. We would practice the next morning, after your lessons, while she was dozing."

He reflected, then, that Potter had been more lucky than he had ever realized, to have happened upon friendship with Miss Granger. But this reflection was followed by the more serious thought that if Miss Granger was not unaccomplished in the matter of Defence against the Dark Arts, her concerns about the threatening letters Miss Patil was receiving were troubling indeed.


	3. Chapter 3

How troubling, Mr Malfoy found out the next day, when a small piece of paper was pressed into his hand as he perused in the bookshop for a pleasing gift for Miss Patil, and he glanced about to find Barty Crouch, Sr., resolutely striding away from him.

It read:

_ An hour of your time, my office. _

That Potter was in close contact with Crouch was unsurprising. Crouch had decamped from his position as Head Auror to the Unspeakables department, which required, among other things, an Unbreakable Vow of service to the government, and he was, as ever, incredibly powerful within the Ministry, even after the revelations about his own son being a Death Eater. There were enough families, after all, who had seen the mercy of the Ministry that they could not speak to his without mentioning their own shame.

Crouch's office was located in a corner with a surprisingly good view of Diagon Alley, the creepy dark halls giving way to a stately large mahogany desk and plush carpeting. The light was dim, however, and the day beyond it quite gloomy.

Well," said that formidable wizard, when Draco appeared at his open door. He pointed to his desk, where Draco saw the week-old picture of Harry Potter waltzing with Padma Patil which had graced the cover of the Prophet, and gave a bark of laughter. "That's the act, eh? Well, if it keeps you close..."

Draco shrugged. "There was no other way."

"You were right. I—I suspect it feeds up the chain, up, up, up." Crouch stared at Draco shrewdly.

Draco rather thought that Potter, in this situation, would be at a loss, but he supplied a name easily enough, after a moment. "Albert Runcorn.”

"And?" said Crouch with a touch of impatience. "Runcorn's who you suspected to begin with. Think bigger, boy!"

"Augustus Rookwood."

“Feeling cagey, are we? If you think you can't trust me..."

"Not at all, sir," said Draco, though that had been precisely what was on his mind. But it was a silly thought, for Barty Crouch, Sr. would certainly rather die than betray what was, in his eyes, just. "You mean Dolores Umbridge."

"Ah," said Crouch grimly. He set down his glass. "She’s one who won't be put off by you swanning about pretending to be in love.”

"How did you find out it was her?"

"What? Slower than I thought, today, eh, Potter? Well, keep going. The lady’s amenable, eh? All the better. And for Merlin's sake, don't tell anything to that Malfoy boy! You don't know what he's caught up in!"

"Certainly," agreed Draco, “it seems entirely plausible that he could be caught up in all this."

He departed the Ministry with some impatience, determined to search Potter’s study carefully for previous notes and hints of what Potter had been investigating. But he was not to embark upon this project immediately, for arriving at Potter’s home, he found the front parlor occupied by the Weasley twins, who obviously did not trigger the wards.

“What the devil are you doing here?” exclaimed Draco. 

“What ho!” exclaimed Mr Weasley. “Don’t pretend you’re surprised!”

“Doesn’t become you,” assured the other. “Now, you must have thought we forgot—”

"—but we never forget!"

"Now, look here, Harry, we've brought you another sample. It wasn't nice of you to lose your previous one, though."

"Not nice at all, it being a living thing."

"What!"

Mr Weasley ignored this and held out an egg about the size of a man’s fist. "Well, here you are. Shall we, again? Now, hand us a hair."

The other Mr Weasley simply tugged reached out and tugged a few hairs from Draco’s head. "There we are," he said, with some satisfaction, feeding the hair into a hole at the top of the egg. The egg gave a large shudder, and doubled in size, a large crack forming along one side. There was a slight sound coming from within. 

"Come along, now!" said Mr Weasley, in encouraging tones.

As if responding, the egg split in two lengthwise and a small white horse with a blond mane appeared from within the egg.

"I'll say, Fred!” cried the first Mr Weasley. “That's not what I expected it to look like!"

"My er—my grandmother had blond hair," said Draco.

"Really, Fred! Did you hear that?" said the other Mr Weasley—George, most likely—with great interest. "Which?"

"My mother's mother, of course."

"And your father's mother, now that I think about it,” said Geroge. “I've seen her portrait, you forget, Harry!"

"Oh, yes," agreed Draco, remembering too late the portrait of Eve Potter hanging in a small wing at the Ministry.

"Well?" demanded George. "Aren't you going to name it? Last time you were spilling with names!"

"Much good it did me last time!”

"All right, leave him alone," said Fred. "Don't you like it, Harry? You needn't be alone on assignment ever again. Just like you asked."

"I—"

"Dead sorry about the last one, though. Where'd it crawl off to, do you think? You'll keep better care of this, won't you?"

"Alright then, sign here, Harry, and we'll finalize the details."

It was an order for five thousand Pocket Horses, for five Galleons each. Draco tried to recall whether that illegible paper had specified an intent to order, and then, sighing, decided that whatever it cost, Potter deserved it. He had, after all, thrust him into this situation with little preparation.

One of the Mr Weasleys slapped him on the back when it was done— _ Good man, Harry! _ —and the twins left Draco staring at the horse he was now the owner of. It tossed its head prettily at him.

"I think," said he to the horse, "that I shall name you Harry."

But this act, and the rather lightening thought of the Ministry paying twenty-five thousand Galleons for a variety of Pocket Horses and whatever else Mr and Mr Weasley could conjure up, did not cheer Draco much that night after an evening spent frantically reviewing all the papers in Potter’s study, the majority of which concerned one Richard Lasseter, who lived, Potter had noted with interest, in Germany. 

He resolved to ask Miss Patil directly about her work, to better understand where a threat might emanate from.

"Well, I get feelings, you know," she said the next day when he worked up the courage, finally to ask her directly where her talents lay. "About truths. When people speak..."

He looked to her in some anxiety. With a talent such as that, she must have found him out immediately.

"It's not really about, things people already know,” she continued, after a pause. “So if you were to be—lying to me—or pretending at something—I'd be—no better than Trelawney in detecting it! But certain other things... Well!” She gave him a sharp glance. "When Voldemort killed my parents for denying him, I—I developed a hatred of all that pure-blood rhetoric, and I—began to study pure-blood ancestry. Something about it had always struck me as wrong,  _ felt  _ wrong when people talked of their own ancestry. And my feelings proved true. Phineas Lestrange, for example, married Vinny Shacklebolt  _ but there is  _ no birth record for Vinny Shacklebolt, which has profound consequences on just about every pure-blood family. Meanwhile, you have even worse examples, like the Malfoys! Their history before Hogwarts' founding is entirely fabricated!"

"Where did you find the Lestrange files?" said Draco, studiously avoiding remarking on his family.

She began to explain how she had traced them, and he was duly impressed with the depth of her research. Her news—though it confirmed what had long been suspected in some circles—was not just extraordinary, but extraordinarily dangerous. This, at last, explained some measure of her danger, and her explanations of her ability cast some light on her continued work for the Ministry, which would no doubt find it very useful.

"Do you think," said Miss Patil, in a tone which caught his attention from these musings, "that your friend Mr Malfoy would react well to knowing? I know you are good friends."

"Draco... saved my life,” said Draco, slowly. “Twice.”

"Everyone knows that. I've always wondered why, though. And how it—how you—"

"Not everyone knows that Draco felt like he owed me, when he saved my life," he explained, valiantly striving to imagine what of his own feelings Potter might have deduced. "I hurt him, badly, once in fifth year… but Neville found us and together we staved off Draco’s wounds. It—he should have been angry, but he—" But Draco had seen Potter's white, drawn, guilty face when he came to, and he had heard the apology Potter gritted out and known that it was sincere, sincere and unlike anything else in his life at the time. "Well, he wasn't angry. He says I saved his life, by nearly killing him, a nice little irony, just like Voldemort making _ his _ own worst enemy when he tried to kill me."

"He likes ironies?"

Was there, he thought sourly, anything more ironic than being posed that question at this moment? "It's hard to explain."

"But you trust him."

"Of course."

"Because he made a choice," she said. "I can understand that."

After that night, Draco observed that something had changed in the way Miss Patil talked to him. She began to talk to him openly about her various projects—about her worries about Marymount, the things she thought they, as a staff, were not attending to, and about the trails she had left cold in following her research into blood ancestry.

He had persuaded her to meet at Florean Fortescue's one afternoon when a note, in a familiar hand, drifted down the table.

_ Not safe. Meet me at Grimmauld Place. _

"Do you think it's a trap?" said Miss Patil, after she had read it carefully.

"No place safer than Grimmauld," said Draco, remembering an old saying of Potter’s. "But I... We won't be able to Apparate in. And there could be someone waiting outside."

"But who is it?"

"Barty Crouch, I think."

"All right, let's do it," she said decisively. "What's the worst that could happen? You're Harry Potter!"

"But I—"

He had no choice but to acquiesce to the arch look which she gave him, and he thanked Merlin and a few other old wizards besides when the danger turned out to no more than grim old Barty Crouch striding about—he was yet another wizard Potter allowed to enter his home at will, it seemed.

"You haven't talked to Scrimgeour?" said Crouch immediately upon their entrance.

Draco scowled. "Of course I've talked to him. I report to him."

"Not the brightest today, are we? About all this." Crouch made an abortive gesture.

"It's off the books."

"Good. The fewer the better. You're in a dangerous position, Miss Patil. If you’re smart, you’ll collect your sister and your brother, and your companion too—that Muggle with that stupid plan for Muggle finishing school, or whatnot—and come here. No place safer than Grimmauld. Dumbledore made sure of it."

"But—" protested the lady, eyes flashing. "My research—"

"The problem with secrets," said Crouch, "is not that they're secret, but that they're secret for a reason—someone wants them that way. You've been mucking about in something much too dangerous, girl. Potter, I trust you have it under hand?"

"Sir," said Draco.

Crouch grunted, and strode away, leaving Draco to calm an agitated companion. But she did not seem offended. Instead, she regarded him with bright eyes.

"So was it all a cover for this, your sudden request for a waltz and what has followed?"

"You have to believe me... Miss Patil... I... " He trailed off. He couldn't confess his feelings; they were not Potter's feelings, after all.

"You think the danger quite serious?"

"Very," he said.

She stood abruptly, and walked away from him, only to turn round. "There's something I must tell you. You'll think me a perfect goose, but there's nothing to do but make a clean breast of it." 

“I’m sure I wouldn’t.”

She took a large breath, steadying herself. "Mr Crouch said that I should—I should bring Parvati and Paul and Hermione here, and I would like to, dearly so, but..." She clenched her hands. "But I can't, you see—it's quite impossible, because  _ I  _ am Hermione, and Padma is—well, we don't know where she is!"


	4. Chapter 4

"What!" exclaimed Draco.

"She left town two weeks ago,” explained Hermione. “She does that. Said she had gotten a good clue. But then the letter from the Ministry came, forbidding her to leave the country, and well, then we had no way to cancel her appointments at the Ministry, so Parvati and I—"

"You're Hermione Granger," said Draco, the meaning of it suddenly dawning."You've been her this whole time," he said slowly. "When you—when you talked to me of Marymount. When you told me how you—about how you and the Patil twins first met. When I—when I told you about my friendship with—Draco.”

Her cheeks were bright red, and her eyes very wide. "I—I'm sorry, dreadfully sorry, I really am, and if you—if you feel that you can't trust me, then I—"

"No," said Draco. "No, Hermione, I—I do trust you."

"Really," she said, meeting his eyes. "You do trust me."

"Yes," he said, "I do.”

There was a long pause. “Any time now,” she muttered, and before him, she transformed, the robes which fit so well becoming slightly long. She grimaced, looking at it, and said, “This is all rather awkward, isn't it? I owe you an explanation, I think. You see, everyone already knew you had asked her to the ball; and to beg off when she was known to be in town seemed awfully rude. The most dreadful thing is that Parvati could have done it but she simply refused to pretend at anything that didn’t require a reading! I am sorry, really, I am, it was awful of us to continue to—deceive you, but you were so charming, and I..."

"Yes?"

She blinked once, very hard, then looked to the ground, and he saw suddenly that despite her determination, it cost her to speak so frankly. "I found I liked you a good deal, a very good deal, you see.”

"I do see," murmured Draco, never more conscious of the round spectacles framing the world he could see, or the black hair hanging towards the edges.

"You aren't angry, are you?" she said, meeting his eyes directly. "I'd have it out here, if you are."

But there was no room in Draco's mind to consider how Potter might act, what he might say if he had truly been confronted with this situation. The only thing at his mind was to resist the urge to speak, to make a clean breast of it himself. Her safety—and that of Miss Patil’s—were still in question, and he could see no reason why she might trust him if he were to confess to her now his identity.

"I'm not angry, but you'll still have to come and live in Grimmauld Place," he said. Your safety—yours and the Patils— and your comfort are my foremost concern, Miss Granger."

Astonishingly, she blushed at this, and he took her hand, quite by impulse, and raised it to his lips. He dared to look into her face afterwards, and at the expression there, thought to himself that he must be careful, that he had never known a girl like this before.[1]

He would have been much surprised to know that similar feelings lurked in the breast of the girl who left him. But while he had much of the rest of the day to ruminate over these, Miss Granger had little time to dwell on their conversation, for upon her return to Patil Palace, she found Miss Parvati Patil sitting quite anxiously in their large drawing room, the curtains drawn, with a summons from Dolores Umbridge.

“Thank god!” she said, when she saw her friend had returned. “I thought I would have to answer it. It can’t be a reading, I think, and if it is...” She shuddered. “It’s awful, Hermione.”

“All right,” said Miss Granger, calmly reading the summons.

With dignity, and betraying very little of her anxiety, she fetched from her own room two small vials, one of which she consumed, eyeing once again the dark-eyed, dark-haired reflection she had become used to. The second vial she stashed in her sleeve, and she left immediately for the Ministry.

She entered into the waiting area, and was surprised when the witch who sat there exclaimed, “Padma!”

“Fancy seeing you here!” said Hermione quickly.

Two large splotches of red graced the woman’s cheeks. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,” she said. “I thought you might—”

“Nothing of the sort,” assured Hermione, though she felt rather repulsed that Padma would be on speaking terms with a witch who worked for Dolores Umbridge.

“I heard all about you and Harry Potter,” said the witch. She shifted her chair back, to open a drawer, and unfolded a large paper which Hermione saw was the picture of herself—disguised—at the ball, smiling up at her dance partner while waltzing. “So romantic! What is he like?”

“Ah,” said Hermione, concluding that the girl was mostly mindless, and love-obsessed, and no doubt knew so little about politics she had merely chosen the highest ranking Ministry official to offer her a job. She began to speak rather vaguely of Harry Potter, to cooing sounds by her listener.

A bell rang from within, with a shout, “Send her in, Miss Brown!”

“All right,” said Miss Brown, giving a little sigh, “the Assistant Minister will see you now. Good luck, Padma!”

The office which Miss Granger entered was a shocking pink, and the Assistant Minister, a short woman with a steely demeanor, stood at her tea service.

“Miss Patil,” she said sweetly. “You are very welcome! You have such a gift. We always appreciate what you do for us here.” She held out a cup of tea, which Hermione took, and, without asking, plopped three cubes of sugar into it, exactly as Padma liked hers.

“It’s my duty,” said Hermione softly.

"Now, now, _duty_ is a heavy word. You come for only four hours a week, and there's much else to do! Still, I digress. You see, Miss Patil, we at the Ministry hate to see a woman neglected. And we witches are rather neglected. So much talent wasted by governesses who don't know a Grim from a clump of tea leaves!"

"I happen to like Sybill Trelawney," said Hermione stiffly.

"You don't know any better. The Ministry keeps many things in its archives. The writings of Cassandra. Marie Anne Lenormand. You don’t need that paltry imitation of a Seer.”

"She is not an imitation! She taught me everything I know about Divination!" Hermione exclaimed, amazed to hear herself saying so but pleased, for Padma would say just these things.

"I hear she’s quite frail these days."

"I tried to work for the Ministry once. As an Auror!.” She remembered well how urgently Padma had wanted that. “But they didn't want me, didn't see the use in my skills." Didn't want a woman, she didn't add. Because Padma would not say that, even if Hermione would.

"I see the use of your skills, Miss Patil. All you would have to do is swear to serve the Ministry truthfully. I never waste a talent spotted.”

She glanced up to see Umbridge watching her steadily. “I—I would like to marry some day,” she said, buying time. That would be believable, in light of the Anniversary Ball and everything that had followed.

"Yes, a husband such as Harry Potter—what a catch! May I congratulate you, dear? He might even wish to allow you to continue your little trips, which we disallowed for your own good, my dear. Much too dangerous to embark without the proper training. But men are so careless; they think anyone can handle what they can. I would see you trained, supported, given every resource of the Ministry, before you are sent to face the dangers, so you may not fear those who dislike your work."

Hermione set down her cup, watching her hand to make sure it didn't tremble. No wonder the threats had been so deranged—they had been invented wholesale, by Umbridge, to scare Padma into accepting her offer.

It wasn't a subtle thing to do, but Umbridge had never been subtle, had she? During her Ministry trial, she had cried large, plopping tears while talking of the Imperius Rabastan Lestrange had set on her.

How hadn’t Hermione seen it? Hadn't it been obvious? More pressingly, who worked with Umbridge within the Unspeakables? The required Unbreakable Vow of service meant Padma's work would never see the light—and Padma—Merlin help her—_trained, supported, given every resource of the Ministry_. She would have been tempted—for she did love knowledge, more than she loved what the truth could do.

"Don't throw your life away. Your enemies are many. You're being threatened. Don’t let your friends overshadow your dreams. Does your Miss Granger care for where magic comes from half as much as you do? Why should you teach at her school, when there is so much else you could do?"

"I want to talk to a man," said Hermione plainly, meeting Umbridge's eyes. "The man who I will inevitably report to. Hermione's extreme, but Parvati and I, we've stuck by her, because we've seen how it is for women: she's right about that much. No one believes Sybill—even you don't. No one believes me, either. You work for a man, and you do a lot more than he does, but we never hear of that, do we? It's always Ludovic Bagman's big grin on the cover of the Prophet."

"But you have my word," said Umbridge, a little tightly.

"Yes, but I won't report to you, will I? I'll be reporting to _him_, the head of the Unspeakables, or Crouch, who never looks at a woman without remembering his poor, dead wife, and barking at her, or Albert Runcorn, who thinks all a witch is good for is Cheering Charms! I want to work with someone who respects me."

She knew very well the calm expression Umbridge was regarding her with masked the satisfied smile of a cat which believed it had caught its prey. "Very well. I will see what I can do. Perhaps you could even report to me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [1] End of this sentence is a direct quote from _False Colours_.


	5. Chapter 5

The Patils arrived at Grimmauld Place that night, quite breathless and exhausted, for the task of packing had been made infinitely more complicated when Miss Trelawney had taken it into her head that her crystal balls might be stolen in their absence, and had insisted on using their finest dresses as wraps. The task of _settling in_, however, made the afternoon Miss Granger and Miss Patil suffered seem simple. Miss Trelawney insisted on examining each room, and made copious objections to various arrangements until the host, exasperated, had asked her to simply assign the chambers as she pleased, and retired to the study.

Mr Malfoy was not to enjoy the peace for very long; Parvati Patil came after him and gazed about shrewdly, as if she could deduce his character by observing the state of the room.

“Come in,” he said, after a few moments of silence.

She could not help but be amused at his expression. “Thank you,” she said primly.

“Is there—something I can do for you, Miss Patil?” said the host. From his serving tray, he poured himself a rather generous glass of whiskey.

“It was all so hasty earlier when we arrived, I must have been woolgathering when you told us when the the other guests would be arriving.”

“I—”

“It’s a shame Miss Trelawney’s been so particular about the rooms, but I’m sure the Weasley brothers, Mr Longbottom, and Mr Finch-Fletchley will be most amenable to whichever chambers you might assign. Belina and Luna have never been particular, either, and I must commend you, sir, on your good thinking in inviting Luna. For all that her chaperone is quite indolent, her presence will set Mrs Weasley quite as ease and prevent her from joining us, while Fleur's child still needs care, I think!”

There was a long pause, after which Miss Patil’s comments were agreed with and her compliment duly accepted, and she left the conversation in good cheer. Her levity was not matched by Mr Malfoy, who sat anxiously at Harry Potter’s desk in Harry Potter’s study for many minutes afterwards, penning invitations. He felt certain that Miss Patil’s bid to make _respectable_ this stay at Grimmauld Place was to be the doom of the entire affair, for he could think of no better way to risk discovery than to bring himself in close proximity with the very souls she had suggested he invite. But just as he nearly decided to give the endeavor up, he thought of how Miss Granger might react should she discover the truth, and felt he could do nothing but acquiesce to Miss Patil’s demands.

That was the devil of the matter. It was all very well for Hermione Granger to admit her love for _Harry Potter_, and quite another for her to feel those same things for him, Draco Malfoy. That she was inclined, for whatever reason, to prefer him to Potter, he had perceived[1], but these surely had more to do with circumstance than with his own person.

With a sigh, Mr Malfoy sent the owls out, and he soon had much occasion to regret his invitations, for all his summons were readily accepted and his days were soon filled with the tedium of devising entertainments and menus for a full house of guests. This became even more regrettable when Mr Fred Weasley revealed to the gentlemen over port one evening that they had provided their host with a most wondrous gift.

“What did you name it again?” asked Mr Fred Weasley.

"Er—still haven’t thought of one,” replied Draco.

"You should call it Draco!”

"My god!" exclaimed Draco. "I think not."

"A man after my own heart," cried Fred’s brother, Ron. "I'll toast to that."

“Where is he, by the way?” said Fred. “Didn’t want to join the party?’

“Didn’t want to be near Muggle-borns, more like,” muttered Ron darkly.

“Don’t think he’s much for these types of things,” said Mr Longbottom. “Doesn’t like courting—when’s the last time you saw him at a ball?”

“Harry wasn’t—until he was,” cried Ron. “Harry, you’ve done me an awful turn, you have; you should hear Mum about it. I’m dead glad she didn’t decide to decamp here. She’s been hounding me!”

“Except Harry invited you here, didn’t he?” came a voice from the doorway—Miss Weasley herself, looking quite charming in a dress she had certainly not been wearing at supper. “So you’ve been freed, temporarily at least. And now I have peace from those awful afternoon calls with Mrs Diggory, so that’s double the gratitude for you, Harry.”

“Still the suitors?” asked Mr Longbottom, quite sympathetically.

“The most awful ones, who don't leave until you hex them!” cried Miss Weasley.

“And she does hex them,” whispered her brother dramatically.

“Better that than you calling them out!” she said acerbically. “Good night!” And she shut the door.

“See there?” said Fred to his twin. “It must be!”

“I saw, too,” said Ron, quite crossly. “Do you think she’s coming back or headed out?”

“By God, don’t stop her!” said George in horror.

“I won’t,” said Ron. “You think it’s only Avery she’s hexed? That Jelly-Legs..!”

The door opened again, to reveal Parvati Patil, looking very pretty in a three-quarters dress. "Oh!" she said. "Pardon me, gentlemen."

The host, who had shot out of his seat at her entrance, stood perfectly still for an instant and then relaxed. “Pardon us, Miss Patil,” he said mildly. “Bachelor's ways, drinking port after dinner.”

"Pooh. We Patils never stand on particulars. Have another round for me, won’t you? Good night, gentlemen!" With that, she too shut the door on the rather stricken-looking host, who had all but announced his feelings for her friend Hermione with that performance, and who would no doubt suffer mercilessly from it.

She found the object of his affections presently, scribbling with only one candle lit, in the Grimmauld Place library—a rather paltry affair—and said to her, “I’ve yet another Ministry appointment tomorrow. I wish she would return.”

“Believe me,” said Miss Granger, without looking up from her papers, “I wish it as well.”

“I thought of something yesterday and forgot to tell you. That girl you said—the love-obsessed secretary—”

“Yes, I remember.”

“Her name is Lavender Brown. Before you came to live with us, she used to come to study, with Trelawney, you know. We were all rather obsessed with knowing our futures. You would have laughed at us!"

"Parvati, this is not a good time. Tomorrow we’ll be obliged to share the pretense again, but I’ve yet to finish brewing the new batch of Polyjuice, and if I don’t finish this now—”

“She was quite a romantic,” said Parvati, with little regard for Hermione’s words. “But there was a wizard who broke her heart. Then she decided to work at the Ministry. I think—if Umbridge is really—what you think—then she would know.”

"Very well,” said Hermione, sensing, quite as Mr Malfoy had several days earlier, that it was better to acquiesce.

“Yes, and you'll have to control yourself, Hermione. She—she's sensitive."

“Yes, yes!” came the hassled response, and Miss Patil was once again quite satisfied.

They met, by Miss Patil’s arrangement, two days later in the small village of Hogsmeade, at a tea shop Miss Brown had described as ‘quite delightful’ but which Miss Granger, observing it, felt approximated nothing as well as the Umbridge’s office.

"Parvati!" cried Miss Brown, darting up from a small table to kiss her friend on both cheeks. "You look so well!"

"Might I introduce—"

"Hermione Granger," said Hermione, quite forthrightly, and gave Miss Brown her hand to shake.

"Padma told me she was sorry she couldn’t stay to chat," said Parvati, "when she saw you at the Ministry.”

“Of course not!” exclaimed Miss Brown. “She’s got Harry Potter dangling after her, hasn’t she? But what’s he like?”

“Much nicer than Umbridge, to hear her tell it."

"That old toad!" exclaimed Miss Brown. She glanced behind her, then leaned forward to whisper. "You can't imagine how she is. She's awful. Simply awful."

“Aren't they always? Tell me all about it.”

And tell them Miss Brown did, for nearly an hour, about the _awful_ things Umbridge had said to her, and the _awful_ people who came in and how rude they were to her. Finally, with long digressions, Miss Brown began to drop hints of how she suspected sometimes that Umbridge might not be doing everything by the book, Hermione lost her patience and said, quite bluntly, “Why do you work for her, then?”

Miss Brown, who had been spreading jam upon a scone, dropped it in shock. “I… I needed a job.”

“There are many jobs. You chose to work for Dolores Umbridge. Why?”

"Your letter didn't say this was to be an interrogation!" exclaimed Miss Brown to Parvati.

"Wait!" said Parvati, pulling her down. "Lavender..."

"If I'm ever to have a future..."

"You could work for us, later," said Hermione, "at Marymount—"

"I don't want anything to do with you!," exclaimed Miss Brown. "You're horrible. Ruthless. As bad as her! It’s women like you become the Umbridges of the world!"

"Imagine being silly enough to believe that," Hermione said coldly. 

Miss Brown threw down a few Sickles and left, and Parvati turned to Hermione with a sigh.

"That's done it," she said. "I should have come alone.”

But despite her harsh words, she did not appear to regard the encounter as anything more than a lost opportunity. It was Hermione who regretted the episode more, as she recounted the matter that night to her admirer.

"I'm sure I could have got her to tell us _something_, even if she is very silly, if only I hadn't lost my temper," she sighed.

"But it's likely there’s not much more she could have told you," he replied. "But I forgot to tell you something too, Hermione—it’s Umbridge Crouch suspects, as well.”

"When did he—when did he start investigating this? It took me quite by surprise.”

“He was the one who notified me,” said Draco, with absolute truth.

“But he—he barely said anything, and he’s an Unspeakable—there’s much he can’t say!”

"He didn’t say the words, he merely… let me guess. You know, Hermione, she used to… well, it’s never been proven, but that_ by the book_ Miss Brown mentioned—it’s not just skimming off the top. Everyone at the Ministry does that. Umbridge’s reputation is for something nastier. Blackmail.”

"But she's the Permanent Undersecretary! Do you think she—might have achieved it by..."

"She very well could have," he said, "or perhaps just her reputation. Easier not to cross her."

"But that's awful! There must be evidence. Surely someone..."

"Most people don't," he said, sighing. "It's why they're susceptible to blackmail to begin with.

"She—" Hermione paused. "Do you know, Harry, I think it's related to what she's doing with Padma. That would work, wouldn't it? The threat of your family being exposed as half-blood. No need for any wrongdoing on any part."

"You're right," he said. "That must be it!” He came to stand beside her, and, looking down at her, could not help but admire the bright look in her eyes, from having deduced something clever. Before he knew it, he had taken her hand. “You had better talk to Draco Malfoy," he found himself saying. "He works on the internal investigations team for Shacklebolt, and he knows a lot more about what blackmail might serve for."

There was a long silence. "You said before that—he was one of your closest friends. You would trust him with this?”

"I would," he said.

He was gratified when she easily agreed with his advice, and he retired early that night to inform her at breakfast the next morning that Mr Malfoy had agreed to meet her at the park, just as she had requested. He retired to dress with care but was at the appointed corner quite on time. From around the corner Miss Granger came, until the landau came to a stop right before him, and she said, in a quite friendly tone, “How do you do, Mr Malfoy?”

"Miss Granger," he replied.

"Shall you come for a ride?"

"You did not bring Miss Trelawney?" he said, suddenly realizing she was alone.

"Do you expect we could talk?" she said in amazement, suddenly laughing. "You have met Miss Trelawney, haven’t you?"

He alighted beside her. “Indeed, I have not had the pleasure,” he said.

She did not spend any more time on pleasantries, instead jumping immediately into discussing the blackmail. He was surprised at how much she told him, after assessing him for only those brief moments, but he was glad too, and eventually he told her what he knew she would not have believed Potter would know—Umbridge's rumored history, during Voldemort's first reign.

He had thought long about the dilemma they faced the night before. Umbridge was a half-blood, had nothing to fear herself from anything Padma's research might reveal. But her rise in the Ministry, when he reviewed it mentally, was rather odd. She had worked for many wizards who were undistinguished and fairly apolitical, unlikely to promote her to where she needed, and yet they had done so. With some hesitation, he had told her more, of the strategies he knew for sending cursed letters and certain spells for encoding them. Of the dangers of conducting blackmail, drilled into him by his father at a young age, and how to conduct oneself if ever caught on the other side.

"You've given this some thought,” she observed, looking at him closely.

"It was an interesting case," he said, lightly. "You may let me off where we met if you have no more questions."

"I think not," she said. “You have been quite thorough, Mr Malfoy. Thank you.”

"And another thing strikes me," he said, as if it was an afterthought, as they approached the turn-off where they had first agreed to meet. He had thought of this yesterday, moments after she had suggested Umbridge might desire Miss Patil’s work for blackmailing purposes, and he had been certain immediately that it had not occurred to her yet, so strong was her concern for her friend. But he had not said it: he had wanted to save something for himself, something to make Hermione Granger remember Draco Malfoy. "Your school—Marymount."

"Yes?"

"The stalling that Potter described to me—"

"Oh! Did Harry talk to you of that?"

"Well, I—I like to get all the details."

"Go on."

"It reeks of meddling. Umbridge might, considering her sympathies."

She drove right past the point where she had agreed to let him off, quite deliberately, and was silent for some time. "I must know,” she said. “Do you like the school?"

"Hm?"

"Do you like the idea of a school such as Marymount?"

"You don't beat about the bush, do you?"

"I just want to know," she said, looking quite shrewish, "whether I should take your advice or not."

"I'd be a fool if I told you I didn't like it!" he exclaimed.

"You seem a direct sort of a person."

"I've little knowledge of your school. Couldn't pass judgment if I tried."

There was a long silence, as Hermione expertly maneuvered them between two other carriages. "I always wondered why Harry was friends with you,” she said when she had finished this, her eyes strictly on the road. “I was fascinated by you. So few people did what you did, you know, walking away from—their birthright, shall we say!"

"None of us can help what we inherit," he said, bitterly. "Miss Granger, I—cannot erase your suspicions, but I would like to be friends. Tell me what I must do, so that we may begin with a—a clean slate."

"Is that how it began with Harry? I think that rather odd."

"There were extenuating circumstances."

"But why are you friends?"

"Not enough that I saved his life?" he demanded.

"Precisely," she said, smiling at him. "Harry's fiercely loyal, of course, but I rather think he'd regret it, if it was all wiped clean between the two of you." She gave the reins a tight tug, and they came to a quick stop. "Here you are, Mr Malfoy—I trust you can find your way back?”

There was no choice but for Draco to follow the dismissal in her voice, and he stepped off the landau, which drove quickly away. As he watched her depart, he saw, for the first time, that Potter would not expect him to simply stand aside, because of course Potter had never intimated feelings of any sort for Miss Hermione Granger. He, Draco, had confused the matter; when Miss Patil had become Hermione to him.

But even so: would Hermione accept him? He could see no reason why any sane woman would agree after such a trick was played on her, and further, why any sane woman, least of all Hermione Granger, would attach herself to one Draco Malfoy. And yet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [1] Direct quote, _False Colours_


	6. Chapter 6

It was two days after this realization, two long days, that Miss Parvati Patil came to the sunroom where Mr Malfoy was listening to a lecture by Mr Longbottom about how to better care for his plants, and reported that Mr and Mrs Malfoy had come calling.

Draco found his parents in the front parlor, his father tall, but still slightly frail, as if he had never recovered when he lost his pride. His mother, impeccably turned out, wore a green satin robe with elegant, long sleeves.

Lucius Malfoy surveyed the room with cold disdain. "And this the old Black residence. You could keep it in better condition."

"Sirius liked it this way," said Draco, shortly. For once, he thought, Potter’s brusqueness would serve him quite well.

"You know where Draco lives," said his mother. "We must talk to him. He cannot ignore us forever. We are his parents, Mr Potter. You would not deprive us."

"I don't control whether Draco takes your letters, nor whether he tells you his address. If he turns away your owls, then he is free to do so."

"You could tell him, at least," said Lucius.

"Tell him what?"

"You say you're fond of him: what future is there for him here? Let him start over, somewhere. You owe him that much."

"I owe him?" exclaimed Draco. "After what the Order did for you—!"

"The Order stuck us in a cabin without house-elves, forgot we existed, and tore Draco away from us the first chance they got."

"I trusted him despite you!" said Draco, suddenly, surprised at his own anger, even. "You made every bit of his progress as difficult as possible. If you hadn't—if you—!"

"Alright, alright," said Narcissa, seeing that her husband was upsetting their host, and knowing her husband too rigid to make the entreaties properly. "We did it out of love, Mr Potter. You know something, I think, of a mother's love."

"My mother, Lily Potter, died protecting me.”

"And so we would have, too, if it came to it. You may not agree with us, but you cannot deny our love."

"What do you want him for?"

"England is not the only wizarding country," said Lucius. "It's not easy to leave, but we can start over elsewhere. Draco could come with us, before his attachment to you makes it impossible for him to seem anything but a blood traitor."

"You know that isn't so," sneered Draco. "You always take back a convert. Only takes enough bad deeds."

"But I don't want him to!" exclaimed Narcissa. "You know him: he's soft-hearted!”

"Surely Draco could join you at any time."

"But he would not, we think, receive an offer from Princess Marjorie," said Lucius, with a light in his eye.

Draco could recall that he and Marjorie had ice-skated together as children, and fought over candy. She had grown up to be quite pretty, but he could feel naught but revulsion, recalling, with a touch of shame, how happily he had listened to her dismiss the Muggle-borns rising up with blood traitors, that summer before fifth year, when everything had still seemed so normal.

"I didn't know Draco sought matrimony,” he said.

"Why would you?" replied Narcissa. “You cart him about but hardly pay attention to him. Nobody receives him civilly if you aren't there to pave the way. Years he’s spent at the Ministry! And still, nothing."

Many thoughts ran through his head[1]: that indeed it was so, but at least in part because they, his parents, had been less than forthcoming, that they had always held out, even after Voldemort's decisive death, that at least Harry himself had never hurt him the way they had.

At this point an entirely unexpected voice made itself heard. "Forgive me, Harry," said Hermione, "but you do know Parvati's been looking for you this hour past, at least?"

Since Draco had been standing with his back to the door, his person obscuring the Malfoys' view of it, neither he nor the Malfoys had seen Hermione standing there. Lucius Malfoy harrumphed, but Draco spun around, the nonchalance wiped suddenly from his face, to be succeeded by a look of consternation.

Smiling brightly upon him, Hermione advanced into the room.[2] "Mr and Mrs Malfoy, pray forgive me for interrupting you! Harry has always been scrupulously polite, and would never leave a guest alone. Go, Harry, and I shall wait with the Malfoys until Draco deigns to make an appearance, for I have no other plans today."

This was, as they both knew, a blatant lie, and Draco had no intention of abandoning Hermione to suffer alone his parents, even if it was to allow for him to assume his own body, nor did he intend to talk to his parents as his own person. "Hermione—"

But she would not look at him, and had crossed the room to sit primly far inside the room on one of the decrepit chairs his father had eyed.

"You might think it somewhat presumptuous of me," said Hermione, "but there's just one thing I overheard—"

"Presumptuous is a rather light word for intruding on our privacy! " said his mother.

"You'll forgive me, or at least it will pale, in your memory, compared to what I say next," said Hermione, smiling widely. "I do hate to lay my hopes in plans when they're not possible, and you see, your dream of his engagement with Princess Marjorie is, frankly, not possible."

"And what would you know of it?"

"Well," said Hermione, her cheeks flushing, and not meeting Draco's eyes, "it isn't possible because your son is engaged to me."

"You—"

"Isn't that so, Harry," said Hermione, looking straight at him.

"Yes," he stammered. "Mr and Mrs Malfoy, if you'll forgive me. I did not think I was at liberty to disclose the news."

His father had frozen, a stunned look on his face, then his wand appeared in his hand; but his mother recovered first, and she placed a restraining hand on his arm. Still, two red spots were in her cheeks. "Our work is done here. We should never have stayed when that Mudblood entered."

"Apologize," ordered Draco.

Narcissa raised an eyebrow. "Can you force me to?"

His hand twitched, as he considered the matter.

She laughed. "You would not—imagine the scandal! _Her_ reputation cannot take it—and you need not play the hero, Mr Potter, much as I know you like to. I'm sure my son will force an apology from me soon enough, for either you or that creature over there will recount this conversation in deadly detail to him. Oh—don't think me stupid! I know neither you nor she are lying, and that he will come to me, all hot anger and indignation. But come he will."

"You are mistaken," replied Draco. "He wants nothing to do with either of you. Hasn't, for years. Not since your trials."

"Perhaps," she sniffed. "But I can say quite easily that I have always wanted what I thought best for him. I wonder if it is so for you? Have you told him of your own feelings for Miss Granger, I wonder?"

He stood very still, acutely embarrassed despite himself. "Those don't matter."

"But you'll find they do," replied Narcissa, sweeping out.

Her husband, with a harrumph, followed her, and Hermione, after a moment, said quickly, "I'll make sure they leave. Don't leave this room, please, whatever happens."

He could not have done otherwise, in any case. He could only stand at the mantel and count the seconds on the large clock that hung before him, still in a daze from the conversation. While she was gone—a long while it seemed—he came to himself, to his own body, and he was looking at his own hands and the faded Dark Mark on his wrist when she returned.

With effort, he suppressed the motion to hide the Mark from view as her footsteps neared him.

"I've always fancied that its potency would fade now he's truly gone," said Hermione, suddenly right beside him.

"I have to keep it," he said, and he saw that she jumped at the sound of his voice, and hated himself for speaking.

"And why's that?" she said, quietly.

"To remember what I've done."

"Not a clean slate, after all," she said, wryly.

"I—that's different," he said.

"I rather think you do an awful lot of remembering."

"Did you mean it?” He turned to her. “What you said—when we met in the park?"

"Which part?"

"Do not toy with me, please, Hermione, I beg of you. I can't take it."

She hooked her fingers around his wrist, and led him gently to the larger of the two chaise lounges in the room. "I meant it,” she said solemnly.

"When did you suspect?”

"The day you—you became impassioned about Marymount and our accreditation.”

"That early!"

“I knew you couldn’t be Harry. He does—I grant you—have famously bad memory for things he doesn’t like. It wasn’t surprising that he might recall little of all that nonsense we’ve had with our license. But he always loved that Ginny had coined Dumbledore’s Army. He used to tease Ron about it. That’s when I knew for certain!”

"You—you tested me!”

"You—you were so—you were so passionate about—feeling second-rate. At first I thought you might be—well anyone might have fit the bill for feeling second to Harry. But then I saw I'd been considering the wrong question. It was better to consider which Harry’s friends would argue that we're still at war, and be so preoccupied with—the Board of Governors and how much wizards love tradition. That’s when I knew which of Harry’s friends you must be. Where is he, by the way?”

"I don't know," he said, grimly. "It's like him to disappear. Miss Patil does so quite often as well, I take it."

"She does," said Hermione simply. "I think they might—have gone together. That would—that would account for why they hadn't thought to tell us not to pretend any longer, perhaps, or even seen it. We were so public, I thought it was sure they would write, and yet..."

"I'm sorry I deceived you," he said.

"I'm not," she said, smiling. "How else would I have met you? But it will certainly make our own courtship seem quite frantic, when they start reading the banns.”

He looked to his wrist. "I can get rid of it, or try to," he said quietly. "You needn't have to look at it."

But she took his hand and said, "It's part of you, too, Draco."

"Darling, darling Hermione!" he breathed, and they did not exchange words for quite some time after.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [1] Direct quote, _False Colours_  
[2] This and previous paragraph, almost direct quotes, _False Colours_


	7. Chapter 7

"There's something I've been thinking, Miss Patil," said Draco to Hermione carefully a few mornings later over a breakfast which was shared by Miss Weasley. "About the troubles you told me Hermione was having with Marymount."

"Would you—like me to fetch Hermione for you?" she said, equally careful.

"Certainly," he said. "Perhaps she would prefer company on her way to the offices."

"I will inform her," she replied calmly.

They set off for Knockturn Alley a short while later, bursting into laughter the moment Grimmauld Place was out of sight. Their merriment stemmed not merely from their successful repartee, which even such sharp eyes as Ginny Weasley's had not recognized for what it was, but from having engineered a way to time to spend together for the first time since they had agreed upon their engagement. This light mood continued until they reached her office, and Draco recalled that he had meant his opening salvo quite sincerely.

"There was an incident," he explained, "three years ago. I only just remembered last night. You recall the qualifications for Ministry entrance? Cedric Diggory—yes, the one you’re thinking of, the former Seeker—had just left the Falcons to follow in his father's footsteps."

She frowned. "I think I remember. Harry was surprised. I recall he sat for his N.E.W.T.S., again, having easily exceeded his first berth, and did much worse than expected."

"His father didn't believe it."

"Nor could I! Or Harry, for that matter! Diggory was a Triwizard champion, for goodness' sake!"

"Yes," he said, "you might recall that Amos Diggory demanded an investigation. Diggory's examiners were found to be incompetents. But you might not know this: one of them committed suicide soon after; left a letter about his reputation which was easily hushed by his family. Something about it didn’t sit right with me, so I looked into it. Any Ministry man can access any student's exams and the rankings for the year—if you’d like to recruit, you see. So I found the list of students. At the bottom, just before the cut-off—Neil Macnair, Cren Vaisey, and so on. Slytherins, pure-blooded—every single one, and not very accomplished ones at that, if I recalled correctly.”

She pursed her lips. "That is troubling. Did you discuss this with Harry?"

"I thought then that I had uncovered a bribery scheme. A Ministry job is prestigious and powerful, and Slytherins, as a result, have always entered at higher rates. Most families are capable of bribes for a position, but Slytherins most of all. The incompetent examiners—I thought they must have accepted bribes. It seemed obvious. But I am not so sure now. Think of your friend Finch-Fletchley—how many times has he sat? Why hasn't he gained his entrance yet?"

"That," said Hermione, "is eminently explainable. He's a Muggle-born." She frowned. "But you're right, too. Together with Mr Diggory's case, it does look rather different, doesn't it? What manner of dislike can they have for him? It seems more likely that Selwyn—holding their jobs in his hands—"

"Selwyn is a Slytherin," he said. "To order an action directly would open him too much to gossip in his own department. But blackmail… I'd like to search Umbridge’s office, Hermione. If there's no luck there, we can try her home."

She gasped. "Draco—if you get caught—"

"I won't," he said.

"But I wouldn't—keep any records," she said. "If I were to—"

He shook his head. "You think too carefully. She would be drunk on the power of it, like Voldemort was. She would like a trophy, I think."

Miss Granger did not like the plan, and she spent considerable efforts to dissuade Mr Malfoy, who finally put her protests to rest, when he said, a little acerbically, “You forget that I’m an Auror, too.” 

But he was nonetheless gratified, despite his gruffness, at her concern, and the way she helped to prepare him for his mission, giving him several vials of precious potions. And when he returned to Grimmauld Place that night, to find Hermione waiting for him in the foyer, he was overcome enough to pull her to him, burying his face in her hair, Potter’s spectacles an annoying press against his forehead. 

"Thank Merlin," she breathed. "Draco—"

He withdrew a large stack of papers from his sleeve, grinning. "She's smart," he commented. "Keeps them where her receptionist might; better to cast the blame elsewhere. Many of them are disguised; but a trace allowed me to find them.”

What followed for Draco and Hermione were long days indeed, as he still had his hosting duties, and she was busy keeping her own appointments for Marymount and splitting the duties of appearing as the missing Patil twin with the remaining twin. But above this they found time to pore over the large stack that Draco had brought back.

The papers, once they had carefully teased out the secrets and decrypted them as best they could, were well-ordered—Umbridge had kept a full record of her own notes, and of the desperate replies of her victims, though she used a code which made them hard to identify. The contents made it clear, however, that Umbridge had not limited herself to blackmailing pure-blood families regarding their blood status. She had also threatened a family with Squib children with exposure, and still more Muggle-borns on falsified records they had used to obtain employment. Finally, scattered among these, were various individuals who had committed crimes during Voldemort’s era which they had never been charged with.

One afternoon, by a series of glances, Hermione and Draco agreed without speaking that they would strategically reconvene in her chambers, where a _Muffliato_ would ensure they were not disturbed. Hermione had transformed her sitting room into the base for investigation. The notes—already quite neat—had been clustered in other ways and were pinned in the air.

"Putting these together," he said quietly, reading one cluster, "she extorted this fellow for twenty-five thousand Galleons! How many families can afford a bribe such as that?"

She came beside him, to read the notes in that cluster. "But every family who can is a pure-blood family likely to have something dire to hide. Draco, do you think—"

"Yes?"

"You remember what I told you Padma had found—about the Malfoy family?"

"I do," he said, with a grimace. "Mama told me of the suspicions, only once. She said it didn't get bandied about much anymore—but I can believe it's true enough."

"Do you think your parents—perhaps they wanted to talk to you of that?"

He sighed. "Even if they did, I could tell them no better than to give it up."

"Being a pure-blood," she said, pointedly. “Give up being a pure-blood.”

He smiled. "The pure Malfoy line shall end with me, in any case, if I have my way, as you quite prettily informed them."

She sighed, suddenly. "I didn’t mean to—scare them off. It was partly on account of Viktor's parents I cried off. I couldn't bear to—"

"I don't talk to my parents, Hermione," he said roughly. “It hardly matters.”

"And if you should—if you should change your mind…”

"As could you—and then where would I be?"

“You could always pretend to be Harry,” she replied, smiling. “To remind me…”

But this did not cheer her fiance. He grimaced instead, thinking of the large gathering Weasley and Finch-Fletchley were even now preparing for that evening. “Did Weasley tell you he was planning to invite—Finnegan and Thomas? I don't know if I can maintain the pretense."

"But you've done so well. Hardly anyone suspected."

"You did."

She threw him a quick, wide-eyed look, and then, to his astonishment, flushed. "You hate having to pretend,” she said.

"Of course.”

She sat, with a thump, on the chair, and it was Draco's turn to be surprised.

"You didn't realize?"

"I should have," she said, examining her hands. "But I"—with visible effort, she raised her eyes to his—”well I liked being Padma. Even... accounting for, for the fact that... when I was preparing to be seen as Padma, I knew I would be seeing you. But even accounting for how that might affect my feelings... I liked being Padma. It was as if... I was free."

He knelt down before her, and, gazing at the open expression in her eyes, he felt that he would trade anything to see that trust in her face every day. He had to search for the words that came next, and was surprised to find that he was not afraid to speak them, not afraid that she might take it the wrong way.

"You liked not being a Muggle-born."

"No—well, yes! Yes, of course. But that I expected. And I can always pop back into Muggle surroundings if I merely want to escape that. Although, now that I say that, I suppose, that carries the same freedom from being—"

"Yes?"

"From being me."

He let her stay silent for a while, stroking her hands. "Do you want to tell me more?"

"Oh! No, I don't know how to say it. I just. When I wake up, I feel—"

"Exhausted? I wouldn't doubt it. I've seen how you fill your days."

"Well, yes! That too. But..."

"I talk too much," he said. "I should stop interrupting."

"No," she laughed, and she leant forward and gave him the gentle kiss he had meant to press on her. "You are helping me think."

"Tell me the rest?" he said, when she had sat silently, brooding, for a long minute.

A look of determination crossed her face. "It's not being me that is exhausting, Draco, so much as being Hermione Granger. I know that sounds ridiculous, but I—well, imagine if I were to enter a room and what might meet me there. The same plans and arguments and debates. I always know what people expect me to do because, that's what I do, after all, and of course I want to do it, I do, but I..."

But it was only part of her, and so few people cared to look beyond that, at the woman behind that hard-won reputation. Maybe—and it was frightening to think it—he would never have known either, if he hadn't met her first as Padma, while masquerading as Potter. Would he have had the nerve to approach her as himself? Wouldn't he have been overawed, as he had been, before she started talking to him matter-of-factly in her office about Ministry bureaucracy?

"You won't be alone anymore," he promised. "You won't have to do it alone."

"Thank you, Draco," she said, eyes shining. "For understanding." And then she gave a little gasp. "But we weren't talking about me. We were talking of you."

How could he talk of what it was after what she had just said? It felt small, trivial. He gave a light smile. "One doesn't exactly feel free of responsibilities when pretending to be Harry Potter."

She gurgled, a delightful, tinkling sound. "Of course not. But that isn't why you dislike it." She frowned.

“I dislike it because Weasley keeps coming up with things for me to plan!” he exclaimed, to stop her from going on. 

“Oh, hush!” she said. “He said it would be only a few friends.”

But Miss Granger was much mistaken; the _small_ gathering turned out to be very much the opposite. Heedless of the work it might bring to their host, each invited party had in turn spoken to several more, so that much of the old Gryffindor team, the entire staff of Marymount, a cadre of Ginny Weasley’s fast friends, and several others besides descended upon Grimmauld Place that evening.

Mr Weasley, observing the room with some satisfaction, remarked to his sister, "It's a pity your friend Miss Granger was occupied."

"Oh!" interjected Miss Parvati Patil, seated beside Miss Weasley on the divan, with a wicked light in her eyes. "You can't ever tear Hermione away from her work. Isn't that so, Padma?"

"Indeed," was the dry reply from the whist table.

This was greeted with raucous laughter from Verity and Miss Boot, who began to tell stories of their friend's exacting standards. But it was Neville Longbottom who told the best story of all: how she had berated himself and Harry for not having read all of _Hogwarts: A History_ the first time she had met him.

"And I still haven’t, and neither has Harry,” he said, beaming.

“Revolting!” exclaimed Mr George Weasley. “You, Neville, I shall excuse, on account of your many plantly obligations, but Harry—”

“Harry’s a horse to care for now!” interjected this worthy’s brother. “No time to read.”

"Harry's horse!" said multiple people at once.

Mr Malfoy, who had been much absorbed in the game of whist, where thankfully he could take his mind off the risk of discovery at any moment, glanced up to find that Mr Fred Weasley had already managed to fish Harry the Horse out from Merlin knows where.

"Yes, his horse of course!" said Fred, holding the blond horse up in his hands. It did not like this, and made a small sound of disapproval. "Feisty! What did you name him again, Harry? You recall I suggested ‘Draco’ a few days ago?"

"I named him Harry, actually,” he said, before he could stop himself.

There was a moment of silence, followed by a peal of laughter from Miss Weasley. "You named your own horse Harry!"

He shrugged, and said brazenly, "I've no one to call Harry, unlike you." He did not, however, trust himself to meet Hermione's eyes across the table, certain he would give himself away if he did, and instead he allowed his gaze to follow the horse as it was passed around from guest to guest. 

"Give him here," said Parvati, giggling, and reaching for it when it had finished eating the sugar Miss Weasley offered it. “Mr Potter, did you _really_ name him Harry? Oh! Look! He knows his own name!”

“Harry!” laughed Miss Weasley. “This is infamous!”

“Do you want one too, Gin?” said George. “You never know what it might turn out like—Harry’s got hair blacker than midnight, but his horse turns out all blond—”

“All right,” said Draco, rising from the table and reclaiming Harry the Horse from Miss Weasley. “He’s had enough excitement, and far too much sugar!”

This was not met with aplomb by those who had not yet held the horse in their hands, and a few good-natured spells were exchanged before Mr Malfoy declared, authoritatively, that enough was enough. 

Mr Ron Weasley slapped him on the back. ”Still the quickest wizard in all England!” he exclaimed.

He returned the horse to his room, making sure to place it under many charms such that clever wandwork would not summon it, and came back down the stairs to gaze upon the glow in the faces of his many guests. In his absence, the card game had been abandoned for a game of charades, and the short photographer friend of Potter's whose name he could never remember dashed about with his camera. At each click, Draco found himself eyeing the easy repose of his guests, to see the picture that might be made.

It came to him suddenly that tonight he had—for a little while—allowed himself to lose his own person within Potter's, perhaps as Hermione had lost herself within Padma’s. But he could never be Harry Potter. He might accompany Hermione to functions like this, when they were married, but it would not be so easy again. The evening acquired a strange weight—each guess of charades and peal of laughter—easily symbolic of what he had, by dint of his own bad choices, lost himself the chance to experience, except this once.

When the charades had ended, and the visitors disappeared by Floo and Apparition, and the wizards and witches of his party retired to bed, he lingered, committing the evening to memory. He thought of Hermione's smiling eyes in Miss Patil's face and how often they had turned to him tonight to share a secret smile, and, with a flick of his wand, whisked out the many candles and gas lights of the room.

He was ascending the stairs when a voice called out.

"Wait—Draco." It was Hermione, in her own body, her hair becomingly braided but escaping the structure at every turn, returning from the kitchen with a mug.

He was caught between waiting and staying. Anyone might come, and he knew the hour was running short, and he had emptied the last of his Polyjuice the hour before to stay for that last game of charades. 

"Let me watch you change back," she said, coming towards him. "Everyone else has retired, and besides, even if they weren't, they would be happy for us. I know they would."

Draco found he could barely nod: there was something tight within his throat preventing it. And then the Polyjuice effect was upon him, the fabric tight around his chest, and the air cool at his wrists and ankles as he stretched into his own height.

She had come to stand beside him, and she peeled the spectacles off his face. "That's better," she said. "Now you look yourself."

Her face was larger than through Potter's spectacles, and her expression quite solemn. He knew suddenly that she had waited all evening to say this, that she had planned it out from the moment she learned how he felt about assuming Potter's form, that being regarded with affection by Hermione meant being subject to her scrutiny, and that he did not even mind her scrutiny, if her judgment was so keen.

He took the spectacles from her, tucking them away, but held her hand close, before kissing it gently. "Good night, Hermione."

She caressed his cheek, then blushed, withdrawing her hand. "Good night, Draco."


	8. Chapter 8

The next morning, a Sunday, a rather fierce eagle came tapping at the window while several of the Marymount staff, and Mr Malfoy, in his disguise, were at breakfast. Miss Weasley let it in, petting the eagle down with two expert fingers. "It's for—"

She looked suddenly at Parvati, and exclaimed, "I thought there was—"

The letter was summoned from her hand, but she recovered it quickly with a flick of her wand, and, giving a gurgle of laughter, raced to the next room, tearing the seal open as she ran.

"My dearest Parvati and Hermione," she read at the top of her voice, "finally I shall return—tomorrow—but our news cannot wait. Mr Potter means to bring the charges immediately when we return to England—"

She stopped, and whirled about to face two furious-looking Patil twins, and the man she had thought, until a moment ago, was Harry Potter. The rest of the breakfast party had followed, quickly, behind them, and as the meaning of the words became clear, half a dozen wands were suddenly drawn and pointed at this man.

"No!" exclaimed Hermione, pushing him behind her towards a wall and standing before him.

“Hermione, for goodness’ sake,” said he into her ear, “I can defend—”

“Not you, you idiot!” she replied, shrill. “Ginny’s the only one good enough with a wand, and you’d never forgive yourself if you hurt Verity or Belina—”

"He's _not_ Harry, Padma!" exclaimed Miss Weasley. "Don’t you understand?”

"It's only Draco," explained Hermione. "Draco Malfoy."

"That, Miss Patil," said a deep voice suddenly, "is exactly why I must arrest him. Accio Malfoy’s wand!"

Barty Crouch, Sr., stood in the doorway. “Women always make stupid decisions! Too many feelings! What a cake to make of a simple matter!”

“Of all the things to say—” exclaimed Parvati. “Men! This, for your information, you cake of a man, is anything but simple!”

“My thoughts exactly!” said Verity. “Who’s this busybody!”

“_Silencio!_” cried Crouch, much offended. Verity came at him angrily, but was restrained by Parvati. “There,” he said, and then, coughing, addressed himself to Miss Boot, as none of the rest of the company seemed friendly. “Imagine my surprise this morning, when I received a letter from Harry Potter informing me of his return, when I knew I had spoken to him not two weeks before, and warned him to protect Miss Padma Patil by housing her at Grimmauld Place. Now, step away from Mr Malfoy, Miss Patil, or I shall arrest you, too, for—"

"You can't do that!” exclaimed the pretty, dark-eyed woman standing before his target. "You've no right, as an Unspeakable—"

“You aren’t very bright, are you, Miss Patil?” he said. “You’ve no wand, you poke your nose in waters best left still, you’re foolish enough to do readings for Evan Rosier, you requested specifically to report to the one woman any person with two brain cells would be smart enough to avoid, and now you’ve fallen in love with—”

“_Incarcerous!_” said Hermione suddenly.

Mr Couch’s hands and ankles were suddenly bound with rope. He lifted his wand, but was summarily Disarmed, and the things that were in his hands scattered about the room.

“No—” exclaimed Miss Weasley, rushing forward.

"Hermione, you shouldn't have," said Draco."You could be arrested for aiding—”

“Hermione!” gasped Miss Boot, who had been quite silent until now. “What do you mean—Hermione?”

“You won’t get away with this, either of you!” cried Crouch from his position on the floor.

“Who’s here?” called a familiar voice—that of Harry Potter. “You lot are welcome to my hospitality when I’m gone, but you _could_—My God, Draco, is that you? What the devil do you think you’re doing?”

“Trying to fix the damn mess you made!” exclaimed his friend.

Much later that evening, when the farce had all been explained, apologies made for disappearances and misunderstandings, and Mr Crouch appeased, Miss Granger stood at a set of windows in the library at Grimmauld Place, hands gripping her shoulders.

"Two Sickles for your thoughts?" said her betrothed, admiring the sapphire ring of his aunt Andromeda’s that he had fetched from Trenton Place not a few hours before to slip onto her finger.

She sighed. "Harry set the date for two days. He says any longer would cause suspicion on Umbridge’s part. He always does this!”

"I used to work with him," commented Draco. "Drove me insane. This business, running off to Germany and never telling me the better—”

“In fairness,” she said, “he had taken Padma with him…”

“And well he could have told me! I refuse to believe he hadn’t a moment to spare.”

“You know he simply forgot,” she said, “until he remembered and dismissed it.”

“I do know! It's why I switched to Shacklebolt, though I—if I had stayed with Harry, maybe people would—find me less suspicious."

"Don't you dare blame that on yourself!" she said, turning to him, her arms still wound about her person. "I cannot believe the nerve of Crouch—!"

"You realize, if the Ministry were full of men like him..."

"We're not ready," she said, desperately. "Harry—he thinks—with the stolen documents—we could make a case later. But it’s our best shot at the thing! We’ve nothing except a guess at Selwyn, otherwise."

"It wasn't going to nail it, in any case," he said heavily. "The Wizengamot doesn't care much for due process, but they like clear witnesses. Too lazy to follow the logic in a trove of documents. And we're back to the same problem—_who_ exactly was being blackmailed. The only ones I’m certain of are the Figgs—they’ve Squibs in their family, and they live in Bath. The meeting place described—I know where that is.”

"They won't testify," she said, "I visited them two days ago."

"Why didn't you tell me?" he demanded.

"I—you couldn't have come with me, and I—I knew Arabella.”

"We shall visit them again.”

"No, they are adamant—it would ruin the youngest's chances at marriage. She is a witch, a very good one too, and she comes out next year.”

"Hermione!" he said, "we have only to bring them to the trial—they will be sworn to—"

Her hands trembled. "I can't, Draco. I promised."

"Damnit, this is important!" he exclaimed. "Hermione—I know Harry. It will be some slapdash affair he’s planned, even with that secret witness he’s brought. Umbridge may not even be charged.”

“I know that!”

“The ones he brings in normally—of course the Wizengamot is happy to sentence them. But it won’t be so with Umbridge! And not a word about anything else in his letters! If the Figgs would talk—"

"Of all the people to choose!” she exclaimed. “Draco, they’re innocent. The Senior Undersecretary threatens former Death Eaters with exposing their misdeeds, and various acts of corruption, and the only ones you and I both decide we might have a chance of exposing—”

"The others have better reasons not to speak. This is only—”

“Only their reputation!”

"Twelve thousand Galleons, that’s what they paid. How much more will they pay, when Umbridge is sent in, but her accomplices don’t follow? Is their youngest pretty enough—are the older ones’ husbands good enough—not to set them aside? A family of ten could live off twelve thousand Galleons for the rest of their lives!"

"I will not compel them," she insisted. "Better we ask your parents instead!"

"That evidence is not good enough," he said. "I spotted my father's hand—yes, he was being blackmailed—"

"You saw?”

"Yes, I saw, Hermione. I thought he might murder her, and that you—holding these papers—would feel responsible. Better you didn't know."

"Then you could—talk to them—ask them to—”

"What would it accomplish, two Death Eaters saying Umbridge had blackmailed them about their blood?"

"So you won't go to your parents—but you would ruin poor Rose Figg!”

“Much good it will do her, to be married to a man who would scorn her sister, Hermione!”

“She—”

"I see you, Hermione," he said, taking her hands, which she wrested away from him. "What are you afraid of? Be _free_, for I see all of you! And I admire you. Call me a Slytherin—I know you are thinking it!—throw my admiration for you—for your ambition, your sharp intelligence—back at me. Why do you let yourself—what are you afraid of—what they will say of you, should you call them as witnesses—”

"Fast words from you!" she exclaimed. "This—from a man who—who—"

"Say it," he said, suddenly angry. "Tell me what you think, then."

“You’re _afraid_ of talking to your parents, Draco! You didn’t tell me who you were because you were afraid to remind me—and I know it! Walking around pretending you—living half a life and—but you can’t pretend away who you are—You didn’t even tell me, when I gave you so many chances! Again and again!”

“_I_ pretend away who I am!” he exclaimed. “And you—when you said you enjoyed being Padma? You deceived your own staff for weeks, Hermione! You kept the truth from me when you knew—Perhaps it’s you who doesn’t see yourself. Who was it who helped Potter cheat his way through the Triwizard? 

"We—did not cheat! If—If this is what you think of me, why—why are you even here?"

"From where comes your talent for deception, Hermione? That same place Potter pulls out his deadly spells?"

"Harry practices!" she sputtered.

"No, he doesn’t,” he said. “As you well know, Hermione since you’re the one who makes him do it. But it's easier to think one simply has a talent for miraculous survival than to face the truth of one’s own power! Not so different from you!”

"How dare you!"

He caught her hand. "Think why you are angry with me now—because I said these words, or because you are running away from what you know to be true? You deceived me with the truth, time and time again. That is a talent, Hermione, and though you recoil from it, you ought not. I am not a brave man, but I am still here. By luck, I have seen you, all of you, and I still chose you. Think carefully on that."

She turned from him, abruptly, held out her hand before her, looking at the ring upon her finger, then walked away, away from him.


	9. Chapter 9

Mr Malfoy sat within Trenton Place the next morning, a copy of the papers he had filched from Umbridge’s office spread before him. He very much intended to find another family which Hermione would not object to compelling into being their witness, but had made little progress.

He had been selfish, he saw, yesterday, when he talked of the Figgs, so focused on how they might bring to bear a witness, that he didn’t see how it would hurt Hermione. She, champion of Muggle-born causes, could not be seen as insensitive to the plight of others with blood that did not pass muster. He wanted desperately to explain this to her, but felt certain that he would have no opportunity to do so. Each tap at his window he assumed to be an owl which might return his ring, if Potter didn’t do it for her. Two weeks they had been engaged, and not two days would she wear it.

There was a loud echo as Harry the Horse tilted over the bowl of brown sugar. “And you, Harry,” said Draco severely to this animal, recalling Hermione’s words once upon a time, “made it all worse by rushing about in that obstinate way of yours!”

But it was not Potter’s fault that they had argued: far from it. It was his own fault, his own damn fault, for being born himself. Ironic, that his parents would come between them when he had been so certain that he could cut them out. Why his parents had chosen this moment—of all the times to—

Draco stood suddenly, his chair scraping. So he had refused to see himself—Hermione had been right. He rushed upstairs to dress, and presented himself an hour later at Malfoy Manor in a striking dark green morning set of robes.

Here he was shown, into the front parlor, which was exactly as he remembered it down to the portrait of his aunt, the fearsome Bellatrix, who his parents did not seem to consider gauche despite her many crimes. All was exactly as it had been, and he was startled to recall suddenly that he had envisioned, hazily, living out his old age with Hermione by his side, receiving callers in this very room.

“Draco,” said his mother’s voice.

“Mama,” he said gravely, turning to face her.

She was not alone: his father stood beside her.

“_Finally_,” said his father. “We’ve waited two weeks!”

“I did not intend to come—”

“—but come you did,” said his mother. “We have much to tell you.”

“Yes,” said Draco, “I think you rather have.”

“Guessed, have you?” said Lucius. “I told your mother you were not as dull as that!”

“Before you explain all the brilliance that is your latest plan, how do you mean to manage Umbridge?”

“Oh,” said Lucius. “We shall dispose of her soon enough. She’s only a half-blood, you know.”

“And I hear she thinks we are too,” said Draco quietly. “For good reason. Seeing as you think enough of it to pay her to keep her peace, Father. But perhaps you don’t wish to discuss that, and wish to discuss instead the venture you have embroiled our family in, with little regard to—”

"We did it for you!” exclaimed his father.

“We did, Draco,” said his mother.

“Don’t lie to me!” he said. “Don’t ever—say that to me—again! My happiness, pox! You did it for you—but if you—you ever loved me, _you will tell me all of it_.”

“So it has come to this,” said his mother. “Is it because of _her_?”

“She is not up for discussion.”

“Oh, but I think she is,” said his father, lip curling. “No spine, that’s what I’ve always thought of you, boy.”

"Do you think—it takes no spine—to come here—knowing what you think of me? How you despise me—for what I consider the greatest act of my life?”

“You’ll never—Draco, you must see reason. You will never achieve the power a Malfoy deserves—”

“I thought that,” he said, “for years. An echo of what you believed. That to be—part of what I believed was right—I had to—deny who I was. But no longer. You will tell me everything—or so help me Father, I will see you to Azkaban myself!”

“You’ll hear nothing from me,” said his father, drawing his wand.

“Forgive me,” said Draco, and he Stunned his father. For a moment, he stared, amazed at his own daring. And then he turned to his mother, with his wand still drawn.

“Put that down, Draco,” she ordered. “I’m your mother!”

“Tell me why you came to Potter to see me; I know who is involved. Runcorn, yes? Selwyn? Tell me the whole of it.”

“Will you take it to the Harry Potter?”

“Of course.”

“He won’t reward you—”

“Tell me!”

“Your father is a proud man,” she said, wringing her hands.

“I know,” he said heavily. “But I will not excuse him any longer.”

“Umbridge is one woman. It’s the disdain of the world he can’t face.”

“So,” he sneered, “I must face it in his stead?”

“But you bear it so well.” His mother sighed. “I cannot like it Draco, but—I hope she is worth it.”

Hermione was, but he forebore to say it; he had lost Hermione anyway.

She gave him a long, searching look, which he refused to answer. And then she began to talk.


	10. Chapter 10

All was abuzz at the Ministry when Mr Harry Potter had announced the surprise arrest and trial of one Dolores Umbridge, Senior Undersecretary. Most abandoned their posts, and filed into the large underground dome where the largest judicial body of the Ministry conducted its business, to claim a seat and gaze up at the impressive stands where the Wizengamot gathered. On one side of the floor sat the prosecution—Mr Potter, Mr Crouch, Mr Scrimgeour, and a witch who was soon recognized as Miss Granger. On the other, in starched, fitted pink robes, Ms Umbridge, her wand confiscated, but her person otherwise unencumbered.

A bespectacled man with long hair called for order, and the crowd had barely hushed when the doors flew open and Draco Malfoy, clad in double-breasted, formal green dress robes, strode in. He paused, scrutinizing the prosecution, making at least Miss Granger nervous enough that she lifted her hand to smooth her hair, and many saw—with astonishment—that she had upon her finger a large sapphire ring which Mr Malfoy seemed to gaze at.

“Forgive me, Mr Vane,” said Mr Malfoy, with great courtesy, “may I summon a chair? I am part of the prosecutorial team.”

Only those closest to the front could hear Mr Crouch mutter under his breath, “Meddlesome Malfoys.” He stood, while Mr Malfoy busily made himself comfortable. “Let’s begin, shall we, Vane?”

“Of course, Mr Crouch,” said the wizard.

“Five years ago,” said Crouch, “when Lord Voldemort died, a number of individuals in this room and others claimed that they had been Imperiused in their actions. These were not verifiable as the men who perpetrated the acts were believed dead. Until now.” He paused. “We call to the stand the man known as Richard Lasseter.”

A large but gaunt man was led in, his black hair hanging about his face.

“State your full name for the court,” said Crouch.

“Richard Lasseter.”

“Your true name.”

Lasseter pushed his hair back, and looked boldly round the room. His smile made his face almost skeletal. “Rabastan Lestrange.”

There was a loud gasp from the assembled room.

“The lady, do you recognize her?”

“Of course. She is Dolores Umbridge.”

“How do you know her?”

“I had the pleasure,” said Lasseter, “of working closely with her whilst serving the Dark Lord.”

“Look here,” said a frail voice from the assembled Wizengamot. “Why should we believe the words of a Death Eater? He would—”

“You will have your turn,” interrupted Mr Potter.

Mr Vane, glancing at Mr Potter, said quietly, “Yes, of course, as Mr Potter says.”

“Thank you, Harry,” said Crouch. “Mr Lestrange, did you ever Imperius Dolores Umbridge?”

“No.”

“Did you ever attempt such a spell on her?”

“No.”

“Why did you decide to come forward now?” called a wizard, his great moustache quivering as he spoke from the far end of the Wizengamot stands.

“I didn’t!” said Lestrange. He laughed a horrible laugh, which echoed against the dome. “I was captured.”

“Why should we believe you?”

“Don’t, if you don’t care to,” said Lestrange. “You always did like to come in last, Branson.”

The wizard’s chest swelled. “Why you insolent—”

“Quiet!” ordered Mr Vane.

“Just one more question for our witness from the prosecution,” said the clear voice of Hermione Granger. “Why have you decided to tell the truth, if you and she worked for the same cause?”

“He’s dead, isn’t it so? But there’s nothing I hate more than a Death Eater who turned their back on our lord. And,” said Lestrange, “if I’m going in there, I’m taking her with me.”

“Thank you,” said Miss Granger, primly.

Several more questions were asked by the Wizengamot, but at a slowing pace, and they began to talk among themselves. Lestrange was a Death Eater, yes, but his words did not make dear Dolores guilty. There were many forms of persuasion for a Death Eater to use. And even, came another argument, if she had acted without such persuasion, in ways that served the Lord Voldemort, those were times when everything had been confused.

Hearing these arguments, Mr Malfoy’s hands clenched around the documents he had brought. It was, he thought, precisely the slapdash trial that he had predicted it would be, not that the Wizengamot ever followed a set process. With a single glance at Miss Granger, who gave him an encouraging nod, he stood, and began to speak. 

“Esteemed wizards of the Wizengamot, Dolores Umbridge’s rise within the Ministry was always strange; we are career politicians here, and haven’t we watched her rise with great interest? A witch doesn’t rise, however, in a wizard’s world, without great support. Who are Dolores Umbridge’s supporters? Can you name one?” He paused for effect. “I think not, because her supporters preferred to operate in the dark—and she had many. A covert operation, to take back the Ministry to use for pure-blood supremacy.”

“You would say so!” snorted one gray-haired wizard, a man Draco recalled as Shipley.

“Indeed,” said a dignified-looking man sitting near the front. “We’ve no need of that nonsense when the qualified—the pure-bloods so often rise on their own.”

“As you have, Rookwood? When your rise in the Ministry was greatly aided by your father financing investigations into your opponents?”

“Am I—or my father—on trial now too?” said Rookwood drily. 

“No, indeed,” said Draco, “certain acts of yours are nonetheless relevant to the current case. For example, the luxury box tickets you and Umbridge convinced my father to give Mr Bowlsby to the 88th World Cup, when he was ruling on the matter of non-Ministry-approved cursing of Muggles. I have here the receipts for the tickets; Mr Bowlsby’s attendance is common knowledge.”

“And pray,” said Rookwood in a bored voice, “where is your illustrious father to provide his own evidence?”

“In this set of letters,” continued Draco, “you disclosed to my father your plans to leave open a seat indefinitely on the Committee for Review of Magical Use, in order that they might lessen the punishments for use of curses on Muggles.”

“But that’s just normal politics!” protested Shipley. “And utterly unrelated to Umbridge.”

“And—when that failed, this next letter, from Albert Runcorn, shows the effort to remove Mance Nevenby from his seat, after his surprise appointment by then Minister Fudge.”

It continued in this vein for a long time, with interjections from various members of the Wizengamot. Miss Granger, listening intently, was aghast at the chilling case Draco had laid out: it stretched into every corner of the Ministry, and if Draco had not found it out, Umbridge would have been tried without any of this coming to light. One particular event he described, a talk his parents had hosted on re-establishing pure-blood power in every line of government, involved over a quarter of the sitting Wizengamot.

“Serious business,” said Mr Diggory, when this had finished.

“Your father’s an ass, Malfoy,” shouted one wizard. “Fled to Germany already, hasn’t he?”

“And you’re a bigot!” said Mr Macmillan, a long-standing Wizengamot member, raising Miss Granger’s hopes that this would tip the scales. But then he shook his head. “Mr Malfoy, disturbing as these reports are, this is not the venue to address them. They are easily covered by complaints to the Interior Controls Department. Any complaint on the act of a Ministry official is more properly registered there. This is a trial regarding truly egregious acts, not mere—”

“I think not,” interrupted Madam Bones, one of the few witches sitting in the stands. “They must all be disbarred from voting. We cannot have a case decided with—”

“You would take the word of a Death Eater’s spawn?” shouted another wizard, to a great roar of approval from many in the stands.

“What has he to gain?” said Madam Bones.

“He’s engaged to Miss Granger, that’s how!” shouted a witch sitting in the audience. “She’s corrupted him—”

“No such accusations, if you please,” said Mr Vane, pounding his gavel for order. 

“Yes,” said Mr Diggory. “We should act the dignified body of government that we are! And I second my colleague Mr Macmillan’s opinion. These are serious revelations indeed, Mr Malfoy. But while your parents’ guilt is certain, I’m convinced Ms Umbridge has her reasons for her doings.”

“Indeed,” said Umbridge, interjecting for the first time in her trial, in her sickly sweet voice. “I was involved because we were investigating the actions of former Death Eaters!”

“It's true,” interrupted the Minister of Magic from his own seat in the audience, front and center in the first row, beaming as was his wont. “She came to me and we discussed it. I knew of it.”

“Thank you, Minister Bagman,” said Vane. “So we shall have an investigation, and meanwhile Umbridge may resume her duties.”

Draco stood still for a moment, stunned, his hands white against the papers he clutched.

"But you haven't heard all the witnesses, yet," said Hermione, standing up. "Mr Vane, if you could please call to the stand Miss Lavender Brown.”


	11. Chapter 11

A pale woman, with a round but charming face framed within waves of glossy hair, stood, trembling, and made her way to the front.

“Eh?” said Vane. “And who are you?”

“Lavender Brown, Ms Umbridge’s secretary.”

“Is that so?” said Amelia Bones, with great interest.

“Well, girl, speak!” command Vane, when Miss Brown remained silent.

“I was not always a secretary,” said Miss Brown. “Once, I had larger dreams. I had apprenticed myself to Dolores Umbridge, at the Ministry, and she promised me good contacts. But in the summer of my seventeenth year, I found I was with child.”

A titter arose within the ranks. “I don’t see how your disgrace is relevant—” said a sallow-faced man who the crowd recalled, whispering, was Albert Runcorn.

“You may not,” said Miss Brown evenly, “but I do, because I possess all the facts.”

Mr Vane gave a nervous laugh. “All right, Mr Runcorn, enough questions. Young lady, please continue.”

“I was frantic; it would ruin my prospects entirely.”

“Better that than to deceive a wizard!” shouted the same witch in the audience who had accused Mr Malfoy of being corrupted by Miss Granger.

“I went to Madam Malkin’s, for the necessary potions, but she betrayed my secret to Ms Umbridge, who paid me a visit. She was very understanding; she did not retract my employment. She said merely that marriage was a dream for those who did not know better, and she would depend upon me more. For a time, I was very happy. But there were signs all was not well. She would receive large payments. I began to suspect something was not as it seemed.”

“You cannot surely mean for us to believe—”

“The witness is not finished!” boomed Madam Bones. “Go on, child!”

“One evening, I returned to the office to hear an argument between Ms Umbridge and a man I would later learn was Mr Rabastan Lestrange. He threatened me, but she said she had me under control. When he had left, she told me that by helping transcribe her letters, I too had become guilty.”

“So you are guilty—”

“Perhaps,” said Miss Brown, eyes glinting. “But I did the only thing I could do, given the circumstances. I kept a copious record of everything I had done for her; and more; of anything that could be related. I needed to know.”

Mr Malfoy had a sudden realization that the papers he found had been Miss Brown’s records, not the Senior Undersecretary’s.

“Then surely there is something, besides your own silly history, that you can present for us?” said Rookwood with a sneer.

“There is much to be said—we could be in this courtroom for days,” said Miss Granger. “But there is a matter I thought would particularly interest this chamber. Miss Brown, can you tell us what happened on the fifth of October, three years ago?”

“My employer, Dolores Umbridge, asked me to send Ministry Examiner Trillian Davis a letter requesting that he award to Cedric Diggory, Ernie Macmillan, and Michael Corner two fewer N.E.W.T.S. than they had earned. He replied with the following letter."

Mr Malfoy, hearing this, drew in a deep breath: so Hermione had found the evidence of what he had only suspected. He examined the copy of the letter which appeared before him—as it had before every person in the room while Miss Brown proceeded to read from it. It had the sound of Trillian Davis—in that formal, scathing tone of his, he expressed his utmost disapproval and his sincere intention never to bow to the vile wishes of a woman with no honor.

“Brave words!” exclaimed Mr Diggory, approvingly He had straightened from his previous posture, and his entire person had come alive, radiating with a greatsense of ill use.

“The more fair-minded among you may be wondering why Dolores Umbridge might trouble herself with the entrance of schoolboys into the ranks of the Ministry,” said Miss Granger. “But Mr Malfoy's evidence has made that clear. Umbridge was not interested in merely gaining a few Galleons or passage of her favorite laws; she and her conspirators were interested in systematically undermining the Ministry's integrity and function. To prevent any who did not share their views from attaining positions within the Ministry, and to promote the selection of their own favorites, they were willing to use means both fair and foul to attain them. Miss Brown, could you tell us what happened next?"

“Mr Diggory, Mr Macmillan, and Mr Corner did not achieve the N.E.W.T.S. they expected. An inquiry was made. Mr Davis, who was found dead soon after the inquiry, seemingly by his own hand. But I knew better. He had sent my employer one final letter.”

Miss Brown read from a second letter:

  
_There are ways to bring people down; one is to allow them to trap themselves with their own plans. Now you have done it, my dear.  
—T. Davis_

“Perhaps you would care to identify the handwriting on this letter, Mr Davis,” said Miss Granger, addressing a wizard in blue robes sitting within the stands.

“It is my brother’s hand,” he said quietly. “Unlike the note that was found beside him.”

“Why did you not say so at the time?”

“I—” He had his hands knotted. “I thought it might have to do with Umbridge; to pursue it was—too costly for me—politically.”

The Minister of Magic, Ludo Bagman—who Malfoy had always regarded as a fool—jumped up at this and shouted, "This is no way to hold a trial! This is all inadmissible!"

"But you would say that, Minister Bagman," interjected Miss Granger. “Because one of the people she's blackmailing is you."


	12. Chapter 12

There was mass pandemonium as Bagman, his face white, drew his wand and Apparated away before anyone could stop him. 

“This proves nothing!” exclaimed Umbridge from her seat.

“You—” Diggory’s mustache wiggled, and his wand appeared in his hand. “You cheated—my Cedric—! Aurors—arrest them!”

“Order!” shouted Vane.

“I’d rather we have it his way,” snarled Mr Macmillan, equally furious at his precious Ernie’s denial. “All in favor of arresting the individuals who haven’t Apparated, yet.”

There was a loud chorus of Ayes, and Mr Potter, not one to waste a chance at apprehending a law-breaking wizard, immediately began to round them up with his team of Aurors. 

These goings-ons, however, had little effect on Mr Malfoy and Miss Granger, who stood within the pandemonium with eyes only for each other. There was a long pause, and then Mr Malfoy gasped, “I was wrong! I should not have suggested it—and when I implied that you—”

“No, you were right!” she exclaimed. “If you hadn’t—if you hadn’t asked me to look again—I would never have thought of Miss Brown, of how I’d dismissed her because I—didn’t want to think of how she thought of me—as ruthless—!”

“My ruthless darling!” he said, drawing her into a tight embrace, completely disregarding propriety.

Their embrace came to an abrupt end when Draco realized that they were being observed by Mr Potter, who had easily overcome any resisting wizards, and now leaned against a wall with a large grin on his face.

"Told you it would all turn out, didn’t I?” he said to Draco. "Even Hermione's school. I figure all that fuss over Marymount will die down now Umbridge and Selwyn and all those other scoundrels are gone. Well done!"

“We only managed it by sheer luck!” protested Draco.

“But you never know what might have happened otherwise! And if this doesn’t prove your reputation—”

"You know it won't stick."

"Think it might, when you marry Hermione!”

“If she’ll still have me—”

“If that doesn’t take the boat!” interjected Ron Weasley indignantly. “As if we didn’t just see you embrace her!”

“That,” said Draco with dignity, “was because we were carried away with the success of our case.”

"I always knew you fancied Hermione," confessed Harry.

"What!" exclaimed Hermione.

"Draco isn’t as subtle as he thinks!”

"Why didn't you—"

"Introduce him, Hermione? He'd have run away! Draco, you’ve a strong sense of duty, but if you don't mind me saying, you're a Slytherin through and through. Cowards, all of you! I barely got you to agree to be _me_ for Neville's ball!”

“Because it was ridiculous!” cried Draco.

“You made my life quite difficult, Mr Potter, when you asked him for that favor,” said Miss Parvati Patil.

“Your life, Parvati!” exclaimed Hermione. “And mine?”

“_You_ found the love of your life!”

“And so have you!” returned Hermione, glancing at Miss Weasley, who had come to stand by Miss Patil's side.

“Do you mean to say, Miss Patil,” said Draco, “that you organized that house party—so that you might—”

“I did it for propriety’s sake,” said Parvati primly, but she exchanged a sly look with Ginny.

“Infamous!” remarked Fred. He had perched himself upon the prosecution’s table while George sat with his feet propped up on it.

“Want to hear another secret about your house party, Malfoy?” said George. “We saved one just for you, didn’t we, Fred?”

“Sure did, Fred.”

“We always—”

“Out with it!” ordered their sister.

"Yes, Ginny dear. Well, Malfoy, we always knew it was you.”

"It's those damn shifty eyes, I tell you.”

"Yes, those shifty Malfoy eyes."

"But Harry does that too!" exclaimed Draco.

"No! _He_ watches the exits, the windows. It's you, clever Draco Malfoy, always looking at the faces."

“You—you knew when you took my hair!”

“Most definitely."

"You didn't think we believed Pocket Horses were a good idea for field missions, did you?”

"You certainly seemed to!"

"A damn stupid idea, if I do say so myself. Can't imagine what anyone would need a Pocket Horse for in the field."

"We never liked making weapons. Bit of a waste of our talents, if I'm telling you straight."

"But as a toy—!"

"The hair, that's the best part. Every child will want their own!”

"Next I was thinking we might do Puffskeins.”

"For the witches! They can't all be mad for horseflesh like Gin.”

“And Thestrals for Christmas! To pull little curricles!”

"The look on your face, Malfoy, when you first saw it!”

"What's all this?" said Harry.

“Malfoy’s Pocket Horse,” said George proudly, and to Draco’s surprise, he produced Harry the Horse from a pocket. “Ministry just bought a few thousand, courtesy of you, Harry. Or who was pretending to be you, at any rate. Dead useful. A small horse, sits in your pocket, if you let it.”

“Don’t,” muttered Draco. “It might chew through your robes.”

“Did it?” interjected Neville Longbottom. “I thought you weren’t much for clothes!”

“Don’t tell me you knew, too!” exclaimed Draco. 

“I wouldn’t have,” replied Mr Longbottom. “But Harry warned me, actually. Said you might get into some trouble otherwise if people found out!”

“Kind of you not to tell me who else knew, Potter!” said Draco acerbically.

But Mr Potter appeared not to hear, for he was busy staring at the horse which Mr George Weasley held in his hands. “My god, what is that abomination?”

“My horse, Harry, of course!”

**Author's Note:**

> Where you see particularly elegant and clever sentences, it is likely I borrowed them from False Colours, which I have marked with footnotes. I will attempt to find the page numbers for these!
> 
> I have a lot of people to thank for getting me over the finish line. Thank you to W, ahhh I helped!, FireBatVillain, and, most especially, S, for listening to me talk endlessly about this fic for half a year and reading/commenting on snippets as I went along. Thank you to Ellie and goldstar971 for being my last-minute betas. My primary beta F has my endless gratitude for his patience and his thoroughness. This fic would be a lot poorer without it. Thank you to my boyfriend for being my alpha and beta and everything else, and for giving me all the best and cleverest ideas for this fic. And finally, thank you to dormiensa, unseen, and withdrawnred for giving me multiple extensions (three!) and for running this fest for so many years! Glad I made the deadline—just barely!—to get this into the very last dramione remix! 
> 
> Oh! And thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed it!


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